No move to renounce claims to PoK says Farooq

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah says there is no move to pass any resolution in the budget session of the state assembly either for converting the line of control into the international border or surrendering all claims to Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

Dr Abdullah said the state assembly has no right to discuss the issue.

J&K Tourism Minister Ajatashatru Singh had been reported as having told a press conference in Chandigarh last week that the state assembly would pass a resolution surrendering India's claims to PoK during the Budget session of the assembly beginning on March 18.

The minister, who is the son of the last maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Karan Singh, later claimed he was misquoted.

Dr Abdullah said he had asked his ministers to refrain from speaking out on any national and international issues which does not concern their ministries.

It was the chief minister who first stoked the controversy when he told an election campaign meeeting in Chhindwara last month that the Kashmir dispute could be resolved if the LoC was recognised as the international border. Dr Abdullah reiterated this at a meeting in Bombay last week.

His statement was endorsed by Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw who described it as the only 'practical move' to resolve the Kashmir problem.

Ajatashatru Singh came under fire from both Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress leaders. One Congress leader said it was ''unfortunate and shocking'' that a minister of Dr Abdullah's cabinet had issued a statement which was aimed at dividing the state.

"The minister does not seem to be aware of the legal and constitutional position of the state which is an integral part of the country," he said.

Describing the statement as a violation of the Constitution, the BJP said not even Parliament had the powers to alter the country's borders. "Anybody who indulges in such violations should be dealt with under the law of the land," the BJP MP from Jammu, Professor Chaman Lal Gupta, said.

State BJP secretary Mohan Singh Chouhan said the statement violated a resolution passed by Parliament in 1985 calling for the liberation of PoK. The country, he said, had fought three wars over Kashmir and thousands of Indian soldiers had lost their lives in battle. "The sacrifices of these soldiers would not be allowed to go in vain," he added.

Dr Karan Singh also criticised his son's reported statement. Dr Singh, whose father Maharaja Hari Singh signed the instrument of accession with India in 1947, said ''we will have to carefully structure our negotiating position on several issues covering the entire gamut of Indo-Pak relations, including Jammu and Kashmir and the status of the northern areas, POK and the areas ceded by Pakistan to China."

"These," he said, "are highly sensitive issues, and it would be unfortunate if efforts to restore normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir after seven years of disaster, and to structure an equitable pattern of state and regional autonomy were to be derailed by an avoidable controversy at this juncture."