Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Replying to multiple queries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the government Wednesday defended facilitation of the visit of 27 Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to Kashmir last month, saying it was a private visit organised by a think tank on the request of the MEPs to understand the impact of terrorism in the Valley. The government said the visit would improve people-to-people contact and Indian MPs were not allowed to visit Kashmir because of “security concerns”.
G Kishan Reddy, Minister of State for Home Affairs, skirted pinpoint questions on the government’s association with the NGO which had organised the visit. The questions were asked by MPs Jose K Mani (Kerala Congress-M), Javed Ali Khan (SP) and Sukhram Singh Yadav (SP).
“The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has reported that a group of 27 Members of European Parliament (MEPs), who belonged to different political parties, including ruling and opposition parties, paid a private visit to India from 28th October, 2019 to 1st November, 2019 at the invitation of International Institute for Nonaligned Studies, a Delhi-based think tank,” Reddy said.
The government insisted that the visit of the MEPs was a “familiarisation” exercise and that they got a sense of the threat that terrorism poses to Kashmir.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
