AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
New Delhi, January 06, 2014 (PPI-OT): Senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party Prashant Bhushan has called for a referendum in occupied Kashmir to decide whether people want pullout of the Indian Army from the territory.
“Any decision which does not have the backing of the people is undemocratic. If people feel that the Army is violating human rights and they say they don’t want the Army to be deployed there then the Army should be withdrawn from there,” he said in an interview with a television channel.
Bhushan had in September, 2011 called for a plebiscite in Kashmir at a press conference in Varanasi and had said that Kashmir should be allowed to “break away from India if Kashmiris did not want to stay as part of India.”
Bhushan still backs the idea of a referendum on deploying the Army. His comments come on a day the Aam Aadmi Party announced ambitious plans to contest the general elections of 2014.
Opponents of the Aam Aadmi Party pounced on Bhushan’s views on Kashmir. BJP spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh said, “Prashant Bhushan should remember he no longer runs an NGO. Demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir is a language that is being spoken by separatists in Pakistan and Bhushan as a senior AAP leader is playing into the hands of the separatists by
Pro-India PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti supported Bhushan’s call for a referendum on draconian law, AFSPA.
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Kashmir Media Service
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