The bone of contention is the Rs 6 lakh grant outlined for militants who surrender.
New Delhi: There’s fresh tension between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the proposed revised rehabilitation policy for Jammu & Kashmir militants.
The policy has been drafted by the state home department, headed by chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. The bone of contention is the Rs 6 lakh grant outlined for militants who surrender, and the state cabinet has put the proposal on hold as the BJP has opposed it.
“The BJP has not accepted the proposal, which is why the decision has been deferred. They have some reservations,” senior PDP leader Naeem Akhtar told ThePrint. “We are trying to get all the stakeholders, including the police and the BJP, on board. We are trying to build consensus,” he added.
Akhtar said the PDP had convinced the BJP to offer amnesty to militants, adding that rehabilitating “these youths is now also national policy”.
“The state government and the government of India are in touch. We are trying to get the militants back. We want to ensure they don’t return (to the path of violence),” he said.
Deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh of the BJP said the party wanted “some clarifications” before going ahead with the policy. He said, “When the relatives of civilians killed by militants or in cross-border firing get only Rs 5 lakh, how can a surrendered militant be paid Rs 6 lakh?”
“We have to see how the public benefits. We have demanded some improvements in the policy,” Singh said.
The revised policy proposes that a fixed deposit (FD) of Rs 6 lakh, with a maturity period of 10 years, be set up in the name of each surrendered militant. In the interim, it suggests that the militant be able to draw the Rs 4,000 monthly interest on the sum. Once the FD matures, the policy would mandate the militant to secure a certificate of good conduct from the CID and other security agencies in order to claim the sum.
The BJP has also objected to the provision allowing monthly withdrawals of Rs 4,000, a new addition, saying it was almost on a par with what educated youths got under the J&K government’s fixed pay policy.
The additions were made after the Centre, earlier this year, asked the state government to formulate a new rehabilitation policy that plugged the gaps in earlier versions which offered small grants and largely failed.
This episode is only the latest in a series of disagreements between the PDP and the BJP. Just recently, the two had failed to see eye to eye over the calls to prosecute an army major and his unit for opening fire on a mob – three civilians had died in the firing — and the investigation into the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, which assumed communal overtones.