Srinagar, Oct 13: Expressing shock over the attack on him by three men inside his Supreme Court chamber, senior lawyer and Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan on Thursday said that he did not regret his remarks on Kashmir.
“If defending a victim of police atrocity is seditious, then I am happy to be called one. I have no regrets on my remarks on Kashmir. Those are my views,” Bhushan told a Delhi-based news channel. “If they oppose my views on Kashmir they can certainly oppose the same, but they are not entitled to come and beat me up or intimidate me,” he said.
Bushan said Kashmir is an issue which needs to be settled and which needs to be amicably settled, politically settled soon. “If it is allowed to fester, it is leading to enormous alienation among the people of Kashmir, which will have all kinds of frightful consequences in the future,” he said and added; “Are we saying Kashmir issue can not be discussed openly and freely?”
“To say my remarks are seditious is absurd. We cannot allow the situation to go out of hand in Kashmir,” he said.
Bushan said time has come for the people of the country to think about this issue very seriously, “to think of what is really in the interest of the people of India, as well as, in the interest of the people of Kashmir.”  He said allowing the situation to go out of hand in Kashmir will not benefit India or Kashmir or anybody.
Asked does he believe that calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir is one of those reasonable restrictions imposed under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, Bushan said; “No, certainly not. That way Jawaharlal Nehru, our Prime Minister solemnly went and assured the United Nations that there should be a plebiscite and he would have a plebiscite in Kashmir.
How can you say that these views are seditious or anti-national?”
“We should even consider banning organisations which believe in violence. All right thinking people should socially boycott these organisations. This is fascism,” he said.
Such groups must answer if they subscribe to Indian constitution. They can’t be patriots,” he said, adding that he still has some minor aches and pains.
Pertinently, Bushan had at Varanasi recently said; “My belief is that we should try to normalise the situation in Kashmir, remove the army, get rid off AFSPA and should try to win the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people. If even then they (Kashmiris) continue to say they want to be separated, we should allow a plebiscite and if that comes out and they still want to separate, then we should allow them to separate.”

Lastupdate on : Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:00:00 IST