Srinagar, May 30: In an effort to get national support to its healing touch policy, the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir has persuaded Congress president Sonia Gandhi to distribute letters of appointment to 670 persons including 220 victims of militancy in the state. Gandhi, who will chair the two-day conclave of Congress chief ministers in Srinagar, is scheduled to distribute employment orders to the next of kin of 220 victims of militancy at the Congress-PDP joint public meeting at Baramulla on June 1, official sources said here.
She will also distribute ex-gratia of Rs 50 lakh amongst families of victims of militancy in the district, besides distributing appointment orders to 450 persons of Baramulla district under the Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme. In this scheme, educated unemployed youth are appointed as teachers in their native places.
The Congress chief's public meeting at Baramulla comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's address to a massive public meeting at Srinagar last month where he extended his hand of friendship to Pakistan that led to a series of confidence building measures (CBMs) announced by the two neighbouring countries to improve bilateral relations. Observers here attach great significance to Gandhi's distribution of ex-gratia and employment orders to the victims of militancy as this is seen as an endorsement by one of the largest political parties of the country to the healing touch policy of the state government.
Vajpayee, as an endorsement to the coalition government's healing touch policy, had also distributed letters of appointment on compassionate grounds to victims of militancy. Bureau Report