India wants peace in J-K but won’t go soft on militants — PM

The Prime Minister also reiterated India’s committment to bringing peace in Jammu and Kashmir but also claimed that this will not deter it from giving a fitting reply to militants trying to disturb the calm there, BJP spokesman M. Venkaiah Naidu told reporters.

The Prime Minister said tat militants had called off the cease-fire on instructions from across the border, after they had themselves volunteered to call a halt to the hostilities and had come forward to hold talks.

A number of BJP MPs expressed concern at the meeting over the media’s coverage — especially by the electronic media — of events in Kashmir focussing only on the action of security forces and human rights violations by them. Vajpayee however, defended the media’s freedom to report but felt that the village defence committees’ role should also be given due attention.

Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Shanta Kumar asked party MPs to monitor the Sarva Priya Scheme under which 11 essential commodities like cereals, pulses, toilet soap, tooth paste and mustard oil were being distributed to those below the poverty line through fair price shops.

Kumar claimed to have written to all Chief Ministers regarding the scheme, which was announced recently, as it was upto the concerned state governments to monitor the project and ensure its proper implementation.

Vajpayee also briefed the BJP members about deposed Fijian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhary’s visit and said that events in Fiji had proved that racial discrimination of a different kind was being witnessed there, Naidu said.