J&K terrorists, Naxals are building bridges: Omar

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday said there were "visible and invisible links" among the terrorists in his state, the Maoists, Left-leaning academicians and supporters.

"We have no experience with Maoist insurgency even though of late we find efforts being made to build bridges between the Naxalites with Kashmiri terrorists and also some Left-thinking academicians and students in Jammu region as well," Abdullah said. He was speaking at a seminar organised in New Delhi by the India Today group on 'State of States in India'.

"We have seen evidence of it (of bridges being built between Maoists and insurgents in Kashmir). A lot more effort to build a sort of interaction. A lot of movement of known Maoist sympathisers now travelling to Srinagar and organising seminars and conferences with supporters of militant violence in Jammu and Kashmir as well," the J&K CM said in reply to a question.

Abdullah alleged that not only were there visible links but also several covert connections between the two. "There are visible links on public platforms. There are also invisible links that are sought to be built with universities and also the active militants on the ground," he said.

He was apparently alluding to Maoist sympathisers like writer-activist Arundhati Roy who had expressed support to Kashmiri separatists at a programme in New Delhi where pro-freedom slogans were also raised. Later, Roy and others visited Jammu and Kashmir to espouse their cause. He said the state was now witnessing a new form of violence in the form of stone-pelting.

"In Jammu and Kashmir, there has been a gradual shift in traditional insurgency involving violence with guns, bombs and things like that to a new dimension that emerged over the last three years starting in 2008, which is a more orchestrated civil protest sort of system," Abdullah said.

The National Conference leader insisted that due to militancy and violence Jammu and Kashmir could never hope to compete with big states.

"We know we can't compete with the big states. We know that in the glamour quotient, we will never be able to match the Maharashtras, Gujarats, Andhra Pradeshs and even our northern neighbours like Himachal Pradesh," he said.