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Mehbooba Mufti compares Modi’s Pak policy to Vajpayee’s

On the day when five civilians were killed in ceasefire violation at Balakote sector of Poonch district in Jammu-Kashmir, Chief…

Mehbooba Mufti compares Modi’s Pak policy to Vajpayee’s

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti (Photo: Facebook)

On the day when five civilians were killed in ceasefire violation at Balakote sector of Poonch district in Jammu-Kashmir, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti reiterated her call for peace between Pakistan and India.

She also compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiatives towards peace with Pakistan with that of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee while blaming the Pathankot terror attack for derailing the efforts.

“Initiatives were started by Vajpayee Ji with his Lahore bus journey and were later carried on in the same spirit by PM Narendra Modi. Sadly they were sabotaged at Pathankot,” she tweeted.

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Mufti stressed on peace as the “only way forward” and said that the nation will have to get back on the “right track if we want to save the people of J-K”.

 

In a tweet, she had also expressed grief at the deaths in Balakote: “Anguished to hear of 5 people losing their lives in the crossfire along the LoC in the Balakote sector of Poonch. My deepest condolences to their family.”

 

Anguished to hear of 5 people losing their lives in the crossfire along the LoC in the Balakote sector of Poonch. My deepest condolences to their family.

The Delhi-Lahore bus service was part of a peace initiative of the NDA government under Vajpayee, who himself travelled on the bus to Lahore on 19 February 1999 in its inaugural run.

Modi, on the other hand, had invited Nawaz Sharif to his oath-taking ceremony as Prime Minister of India at New Delhi. Sharif, who was then the PM of Pakistan, attended the ceremony held on 26 May 2014.

In December 2015, Modi had made an unscheduled stopover in Lahore, where he was received by Sharif, on his way back from Russia and Afghanistan. The gesture was seen as a major sign of positive political equation between India and Pakistan.

Relations, however, continued to plummet since the 2 January 2016 attack on Pathankot Air Force base by terrorists from Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

Ever since there have been numerous instances of ceasefire violations from Pakistan along the LoC. Mufti has been calling for dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi to ease tensions.

“Guns cannot solve any problems, only talks can,” she had said referring to the constant ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the LoC in the state.

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