Cong to press for judicial probe into J&K killings

The party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Madhavrao Scindia, told The Indian Express tonight: “In such circumstances, in a massacre of such magnitude, the Government should itself have come forward to order a judicial inquiry to ascertain the facts regarding security lapses…I cannot understand why the government is running away from it…what has it got to hide.”

Scindia said his party was determined to get the government to agree to a judicial inquiry as the one already instituted by the state government wasn’t adequate enough to bring out the “lapses” which led to such an unprecedented massacre in the Valley.

Although the Congress woke up to the demand for a judicial inquiry a trifle late — its initial reaction after the massacre was to call it an attempt to derail the peace talks — it now feels that by focussing on it now, it can nail the “government’s less than subtle attempts to cover up for its failure to provide adequate security to the Amarnath Yatris and other civilians.”

Sources asserted that it was in this context that the party desisted from demanding the resignation of Union Home Minister L.K. Advani — it left the raising of such demands in Parliament to individual MPs — since it was felt that by targetting the Home Minister, the issue of judicial inquiry would fall behind and the party’s attack on the government would look “personalised and politicised.”

The party has already endorsed the Government’s initiative to hold talks with militant groups in the Valley, saying that it will support them as long as they are held within the ambit of the Constitution. “But the peace talks and the judicial inquiry are not all related…Government is only seen to be covering up for its agencies by refusing to institute one.

A senior Congress leader likened the situation with that during last year’s Kargil war which was preceded by the Prime Minister’s famous bus trip to Lahore. “The Government talks peace and is then caught unawares or is unable to anticipate what could happen next,” he charged.

The Congress’ need to be seen as taking on the Government, however, also stems from the fact that as the principal opposition party, it has been accused of being rather “soft” on the NDA. The party’s bid to project itself as a “constructive” opposition party has often got mired in charges that it is unable to take on the Government due to confusion within its own ranks.