Alert in Kashmir Valley before PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with J&K leaders

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Security forces within the Kashmir Valley are on high alert before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s all-party meeting with political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir on Midsummer Day .

This will be PM Modi’s first interaction with all the mainstream political parties of Jammu and Kashmir since August 5, 2019, when the Centre abrogated the state’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories: J&K and Ladakh.

The security grid within the Valley was reviewed during a core meeting co-chaired by J&K’s Director General of Police, general officer and commissioned military officer Commanding of XV Corps, and a few gaps were being filled, NDTV reported.

Additionally, a 48-hour alert has been issued within the UT and along the road of Control, a senior official told NDTV. While there’s a ceasefire at the LoC, security forces reportedly “don’t want to require chances”.

The meeting is occurring at the very best level and therefore the security forces don’t want anyone to derail them, the news channel quoted a senior official as saying.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had reviewed the safety situation in J&K.

The People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), an amalgam of 5 regional political parties, will attend the all-party meeting called by the prime minister. The PAGD, or ‘Gupkar Alliance’, comprises the National Conference (NC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M), the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement (JKPM) and therefore the Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference (JKANC).

As many as 14 leaders from J&K including four former chief ministers of the erstwhile state – Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mehbooba Mufti – are invited.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s J&K unit president Ravinder Raina, two senior party leaders – former deputy chief ministers Nirmal Singh and Kavinder Gupta – also will participate within the scheduled meeting.

The meeting is being seen because the first crucial step by the Centre aimed toward resuming the political process in J&K and holding assembly elections. J&K has been under central rule since June 2018 when the BJP-PDP coalition government collapsed.

The prime minister is predicted to urge leaders at the meeting to cooperate with the Delimitation Commission and set the electoral process moving.