Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik felicitates state DGP Dilbagh Singh for conducting a successful Amarnath Yatra at Raj Bhavan in Srinagar on Wednesday. (Photo: PTI)

Srinagar: J&K governor Satya Pal Malik on Wednesday assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir that the identity, culture, languages, religions and heritage of the state would be preserved and no outside pressure to dilute these would be allowed.

“I want to assure the people that identity of J&K, its culture, languages, religion, heritage and society will be protected. We will not allow any outside pressure on these. We will preserve and protect these,” he said in his first interaction of a select group of media persons here after J&K was stripped of its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution and split into two Union territories in the first week of August.

Asked if the government was planning to issue an ordinance to this effect, the Governor said, “It is far off matter.”

He, however, asserted that what he said had the backing of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. He said, “It is the solemn assurance of Prime Minister …we will restore normalcy in the region.”

Talking about the network connectivity which has been suspended in the Valley, he said, “The medium of phone and internet is used less by us and mostly by terrorists and Pakistanis as well as for mobilisation and indoctrination. It is a kind of weapon used against us, so we have stopped it. The services will be resumed gradually.” He said that the administration is concerned about every life in the State; hence is leaving no stone unturned to protect it. He said, “Every Kashmiri life is valuable to us, we don’t want a loss of even a single life. There has been no civilian casualty, only the few who got violent are injured, they also have below the waist injuries.” This, he said, was in sharp contrast to earlier disturbances when a large number of people had lost their lives. He added that the strict restrictions were placed to prevent civilian causalities.

He said that few incidents of clashes were reported between the protestors and security forces and utmost care was taken to avoid injuries.

Replying questions, he said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was behaving like a political “juvenile” and that it was because of it that Pakistan has mentioned his statements in its letter to the United Nations. “He should not have done that. He has not cleared his stand on Kashmir, so far,” he said. He added, “During elections his opponents don’t need anything other than telling people that they are supporters of Article 370. People will beat them with shoes.”

Talking about the network connectivity which has been suspended in the Valley, he said, “The medium of phone and internet is used less by us and mostly by terrorists and Pakistanis as well as for mobilisation and indoctrination. It is a kind of weapon used against us, so we have stopped it. The services will be resumed gradually.”

He also said that the government is planning major investments in the region in the next six months which will boost development. He said that as many as fifty thousand vacancies in various government departments will be filled up in the next few months and urged the youth to come forward and participate actively in this recruitment process “as this would be the largest single recruitment drive ever in J&K or Ladakh”.

He further said that the government is working with various Central agencies to put together a scheme to provide a minimum support price for the apple crop in the state and that NAFED was willing to commit over Rs. 5,000 crores for procuring over 50 percent of apple production of the State. This, he said, would benefit over 7 lakh apple farmers.

He said that there has been a constant endeavour to relax restrictions imposed in the Valley and parts of Jammu region on August 5 “as quickly as possible”. He said that as of now 81 out of 111 police stations in the Valley had already got day time relaxations and further relaxations would be considered in the days to come.

He also said that schools are also being gradually opened up and that over 3,000 primary schools and 1,000 middle schools are open and efforts would be made to gradually open up more.

He also cautioned the people to be alert to “mischievous and motivated rumours being spread to disturb peace and cause disaffection”. He assured that there are no shortages of medicines in any hospitals or of any other essential commodity and that the situation was being monitored closely by his advisors.