A parliamentary panel on Wednesday expressed concerns over lack of relief efforts in Indian-held Kashmir and decided to lodge a formal protest with New Delhi through the Foreign Office. Members of the Senate Standing Committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan say that India, which calls itself the world’s biggest secular democracy, should stop its discriminatory attitude in providing relief to the flood affected population in Indian-held Kashmir.
According to the Senate Secretariat’s media office, Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s (AJK) chief secretary told the committee that the losses in AJK were mainly due to landslides caused by rains and flash floods. “These floods have nothing to do with the water coming from India and are purely because of extensive rainfall,” he said.
The senators also expressed concerns over preventive and precautionary measures, taken by the AJK government. They recommended that iron gabions should be built to avoid landslides, which caused loss of infrastructure and precious lives.
However, the AJK chief secretary said the mountain terrain in the AJK had wet soil and that the situation had become uncontrollable after torrential monsoon rains. “These mountains have become weak after the 2005 earthquakes and landslides have become a regular happening,” he said.
He said that other than Mirpur, there is no flat land in AJK and that there was no possible way of changing the life patterns of people living on mountains.
National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) Director General Major General Muhammad Saeed Aleem, who briefed the meeting on the rain-induced floods, said that 3,000 people had been evacuated from Bagh, Poonch, Kotli and Mirpur areas of AJK.
The pictures of devastation caused by floods also shocked the senators, who asked the administration to come up with a detailed report in the next meeting. Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Muhammad Birjees Tahir proposed that heads of the NDMA, Metrological Department and foreign secretary should also be called in the next meeting of the committee.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2014.
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There is epidemic of stupidity and there indescribable stupidity, the lodging of complaint falls in the indescribable category.
Why would paper like ET post such a stupid headline? Slow news day or is it a joke?
Pakistan's aren't bothered about Kashmiris that are inside its control but is more concerned about those that are not under its control ? Given that fewer people have died in Jammu and Kashmir while PoK has seen more dead - its amusing to see the Pakistani reaction becoming increasingly hysterical about "discrimination".