Jammu, Feb 10 (IANS) It surprised many when central Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad opposed Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s proposed policy of giving amnesty to and rehabilitating Kashmiri youth who went to Pakistan for arms training and now want to return home without weapons.
A minister in Abdullah’s cabinet and many others wondered if Azad had forgotten that the idea was first mooted when he was the chief minister of the state and his government had supported the rehabilitation of those who had gone to Pakistan-administered Kashmir for militant training and wanted to return home to join the mainstream.

“It’s indeed surprising that Azad has forgotten his own tenure and the happenings of the time,” said the minister in the Congress-National Conference coalition government.

“The whole thing is documented. It’s on the records,” the minister told IANS on condition of anonymity.

Azad during his visit to Jammu Tuesday said the surrender of the militants on their return from Pakistan-administered Kashmir could pose a serious danger to security in the state.

“Who will guarantee (that these youths will not engage in terrorist activities)? Should we trust Pakistan?” Azad said here when reporters asked about the plan Abdullah proposed at a conference on internal security in New Delhi last week.

“Could it not be another way of infiltrating armed youth inside?” Azad wondered.

But the fact remains that the idea was first floated in May 2006 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held the second roundtable conference on Kashmir in Srinagar. Azad was then heading the Congress-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) coalition government in the state.

Manmohan Singh had listed this issue as one of the subjects to be looked into for addressing the internal dimension of the Kashmir issue, and at his press conference May 25, 2006, he had stated that talks would be held with Pakistan on this issue.

A working group headed by M. Hamid Ansari, now vice president, had recommended that the government should initiate talks with Pakistan to rehabilitate these youth.