Family Members for Befitting Reply

No recent event has inflamed people’s anger so much against Article 370 as the Pulwama incidents. Fathers of three martyrs, two from the CRPF and one from the army, were voicing people’s considered opinion that has crystallised into a vociferous voice to throw 370 out of Indian Constitution when newsmen met them. The two CRPF jawans who laid down their lives in the Avantipur suicide attack on February 14, 2019 hail from Shamli District of Western Uttar Pradesh and the army jawan belonged to Meerut District. Shri Sohan Pal Kori, the father of martyred CRPF constable Amit Kumar, lives in Panjabi Colony of Shamli. He says that Article 370 is the biggest obstacle between Kashmir and the rest of India. It is responsible for a restrained hand that India has to keep while dealing with insurgency there. Unless it goes, India cannot deal effectively with terror there.

Shri Jagdish Prasad Prajapati, the father of another martyred CRPF constable Pradeep Kumar, hails from the village Banat near the town Shamli. He too repeats the argument. “We have been sacrificing our brave boys for the land which does not fully belong to us. Why this state of affairs is allowed to continue? Mistakes of the past must be rectified,” he says.

By far the most comprehensive reply comes from Shri Veer Pal, father of the army jawan Ajay Kumar of the village Basa Teekri in Meerut District. Ajay sacrificed his life in a patrolling incident near Pulwama on February 16 along with an army major when hiding terrorists opened fire on them. Shri Veer Pal, who himself has been in the army, says what Government of India should now do. According to him, abolition of Article 370 is the starting point. Order to shoot the Kashmiri stone-pelters must immediately follow. And then India must scrap the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, block river water going to Pakistan, and over and above there should a war with this war-monger to end all wars. He says Pakistan’s desire to give India a thousand bleeding cuts must end in its dismemberment.

There is such a groundswell for the demand of abolition of Article 370 that about half a dozen youth have started hunger strike in its support at the gates of Meerut College, Meerut. They are displaying pictures of the martyrs along with the tricolour.

When the body of martyred Hari Singh reached his village Rajgarh under Rewari district of Haryana on February 19, his ten-month-old son, Lakshya, performed the last rites. Vir Pal’s wife Radhabai said she would send her son also in the army to serve the nation. Four-year-old son of martyred Shyoram Sirdhana in Jaipur on February 19 said he would kill the enemies of the country when grows.

When the body of Major Vibhuti reached Dehradun on February 19, his wife Nikita did not shed even a single drop of tear ­­and stopped others too. She said, “Let him go, he is a hero of the nation. I am proud of being his wife,” she said while telling people to understand his sacrifice for the nation.