KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Towing a protest line once again to create political pressure on state and centre to set up another AIIMS in the state, people in Jammu are observing complete bandh Wednesday over the alleged shifting of AIIMS to Kashmir.
Responding to the bandh call given by Jammu Bar Association, traders and industrialists have closed their business establishments and thus have crippled normal life in state’s winter capital.
More than 70 social, political, religious and business organisations of Jammu are rallying behind AIIMS for Jammu with the support of many local BJP and RSS leaders.
But amid mounting pressure tactics, J-K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has already cleared his government’s stand on the issue, saying AIIMS was only meant for Kashmir as per PDP-BJP Agenda of Alliance.
While reacting over the issue, PDP MP from Srinagar Parliamentary seat, Tariq Hamid Karra recently batted for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) and a Government Engineering College in Kashmir so that distribution of institutions is made in an equitable and justifiable manner in the state. “While the Jammu region is in its right to ask for another AIIMS for the region,” Karra said, “the people of Kashmir have also a right to press for setting up of institutions like IIT, IIM and IIMC, which have been exclusively established in Jammu.”
But as the issue is snowballing into crisis, BJP Tuesday suggested in an apparent damage control exercise that AIIMS must be set up at a place accessible to all three regions of the state. “I can understand the sentiments of the people of Jammu when Kashmir already has a medical institute,” BJP MP and the party’s national spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi said. “But we must not divide it in the name of Jammu and Kashmir as it is one state and the AIIMS will come up in this state.”
