Balraj Puri focuses on Reconciliation

A special session with Mr. Balraj Puri, a senior Indian human rights expert and the Chairman Institute of Jammu & Kashmir Affairs, Jammu, was organized on June 1. During the talk, which was attended by academicians, journalists, intellectuals and eminent personalities from different fields of life, Mr. Puri stated that, “every sane Indian” was reconciled to the reality of Pakistan and respected its sovereignty. He added that friendly relations between the two countries and a democratic and prosperous Pakistan were in the best interests of India.

Mr. Puri welcomed the opening of a bus service between the two parts of the state, but stressed the need for opening various other similar roads to facilitate families divided by the Line of Control. Freer movement of people on both sides, he opined, could be catalytic in the resolution of the contentious dispute.

Criticizing double standards, Mr. Puri said that cross-border terrorism and human rights violations were two names for the same phenomenon, and called upon civil society to condemn all killings of innocents.

During the subsequent Q&A session, Mr. Puri also explained his concept of regional autonomy, that is, a federal and decentralized system that provides for rational and equitable constitutional safeguards for all regions and communities within the state.