Singh: India alive to sensitivities: Aid for victims in AJK
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, Oct 11: India was ready to rush potentially life-saving aid to the devastated parts of Azad Kashmir since these were more readily accessible from the Line of Control, but New Delhi was equally alive to Pakistan’s sensitivities in not signalling its acceptance, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday.
“It depends on Pakistan’s sensitivities,” Press Trust of India said from Srinagar, quoting Dr Singh. “We have to respect them. If they agree to this, there will be positive response from our side,” Dr Singh told reporters here after visiting quake-hit areas in Tangdhar and Uri close to the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.
The prime minister said the army chief and director general of military intelligence (DGMI) had made such an offer to Pakistan.
Recalling his telephonic conversation with President Gen Pervez Musharraf hours after the quake struck on Saturday, Dr Singh said he had later met Pakistan High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan, who indicated certain immediate requirements which were accepted by India.
About reports of alleged terror camps being destroyed in Azad Kashmir in the quake, Dr Singh said he did not have detailed information in this regard and added that loss of lives was a source of grief for all and nobody should make political capital out of it.
Asked about the restoration of the disrupted Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, he said the road was very badly damaged. “In this hour of grief, humanitarian aspect should predominate and political and other aspects should be kept subservient to all this.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri talked to Indian Foreign Minister Kunwar Natwar Singh on telephone and appreciated India’s relief efforts for earthquake victims.
In a welcome twist to the Indian aid effort, reports said an Indian family stranded in Muzaffarabad after Saturday’s earthquake will be airlifted to Islamabad on Wednesday.
This information was conveyed by Mr Natwar Singh to pro-Indian Kashmir leader Omar Abdullah.
The Tandon family has lost one of its members in the quake, while two others are seriously injured.
Mr Abdullah was quoted by NDTV news channel as saying New Delhi had earlier proposed to take the stranded Pakistani passengers from the last Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus back to their country by an Indian chopper.
The same chopper would then have brought back the Tandons to India. However, that proposal was rejected, and the family will now be airlifted by Pakistan.
