NC pitches for intra-state dialogue

Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 25

The National Conference today pitched for an intra-state dialogue among the three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to preserve singular entity of the state and also to bridge the fault lines being created by divisive forces on the basis of region and religion.

“The dialogue should be wide-ranging; among the three regions and within the regions and their sub-regions; between religious and ethnic groups and between different shades of opinion,” Devender Singh Rana, NC provincial president, Jammu, said while leading party functionaries in paying homage to Sheikh Nazir Ahmed.

He said the intra-regional broad-based dialogue had assumed added significance in the wake of mistrust being created by vested interests in the recent past. This was not in consonance with the idea of Jammu and Kashmir, he said. “A collective effort is needed to find out the genesis of fault lines and suggesting corrective measures to revive and sustain the glorious ethos for which the state was known the world over,” he added.

However, expressing concern over machinations of polarising elements, who were hell-bent on sowing the seeds of mistrust and hate, he exhorted the people, in general, and National Conference cadre, in particular, to shoulder their responsibilities of preserving the rich multi-cultural, multi-regional, and multi-ethnic ethos of the state.

Paying tributes to Sheikh Nazir Ahmed, Rana said, “The best tribute to Nazir saheb would be to nurture the spirit of inclusiveness which is a guarantee to peace in the state.”