Islamabad (Anantnag), Apr 17: Asking the Army to refrain from issuing political statements senior National Conference (NC) leader and Member Parliament Dr Mehboob Beg Tuesday said that the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) was not applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
 Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of a function at District hospital, here in south Kashmir, Dr Beg said, “Though Army is well within their right to give their feedback regarding security related matters but they should not go public on political issues like revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and leave it to the political class to take a final call.”
 He said that the government of India should realize that letting the Army interfere in the politics of the state was detrimental for the National interest as well as the interests of our state.
 Stating that the NCTC was not applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Beg said,
 “NCTC is not applicable here and any attempt to implement it will be seen as an attempt to erode the special status of the state further and again dilute the Article 370.”
  Dr Beg said that like TADA, POTA and other extrajudicial laws NCTC is also going to prove counterproductive. “The central government  rather than curing symptoms of the disease should rather cure the disease itself which is to find the political solution of the Kashmir issue. Implementing extrajudicial laws does not augur well to the largest democracy of the world and is rather going to alienate Kashmiris further”.
 He said that he fails to understand if the home ministry and security agencies themselves claim that the situation has improved a lot, why they are reluctant to revoke laws like AFSPA.
 Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah has not opposed the move but has made it clear that state has given conditional consent to the formation of NCTC in the state.
 During his speech in the Legislative Assembly on March, 28 Omar had said, “The state has given only conditional consent to the formation of NCTC”.
 Elaborating further he had said, “The NCTC has three components – intelligence gathering, intelligence analysis and operational independence. We have made it clear that we do not have any objection to the intelligence gathering, as is being done by several central agencies in the state, and for that if you (center) want to give it name of NCTC we do not have any objection.”
 However, the chief minister said that the state will not in any way allow the independence of operation by the central agencies in the state. “We have cleared our stand that we will not get this part implemented in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as we have very bad experience of the central agencies going for independent operations, without taking the state police along”.
 He said that we have records that in most of such operations where police was not made part, the chances of human right violations increase. “We have got our objection recorded that we will not allow any forces, which the centre wants to create to deal in anti-militancy related matters, will not be allowed to function in the state if police is not made part of the operations”.
 On Chief Minister remarks on NCTC Dr  Beg said, “ The Chief Minister has been consistently pursuing revisiting AFSPA and reducing foot prints of soldiers which is clearly proves his sincerity.”
 He said that the state government has amended the Public Safety Act which was well within its powers.
 Emphasizing upon restoring the federal structure of the country  Dr Beg said, “The 1952 Delhi Agreement serves as the base for federalism and should be restored henceforth”.
 Earlier, Dr Beg inaugurated the latest analyzer in the hospital through which all medical tests like Liver function test, Kidney test and Lipid profile would be conducted. “Till now I have donated Rs 50 lakh for the improvement of the District hospital.”

Lastupdate on : Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST