Published: March 19, 2010

Kashmir Government to Rehabilitate Stone Throwers

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Srinagar, March 19: The Kashmir government in contemplating to rehabilitate the stone throwers.

The Kashmir has been witnessed growing incidents of stone throwing and protests. The authorities have arrested hundreds of youth and booked some of them under infamous Public Safety Act. Under PSA, a person can be detained for two years without trial.

Addressing lawmakers of the Kashmir Assembly last evening, chief minister Omar Abdullah said the government was thinking of rehabilitating stone throwers. "No rehabilitation policy has been framed for stone throwers so far but the Government was working on it. When the Government can have a rehabilitation policy for militants why it can't have a similar policy for stone throwers," he said.

He said those who indulge in stone pelting were "our own boys". "The arrested stone throwers will be released as the local committees have assured the government that will be helping government to end the stone pelting incidents," he said.

Omar said even hard-liner Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Kashmir's Grand Mufti Mufti Bashir-ud-Din are speaking against them.

Kashmir's Grand Mufti recently came out with an edict and termed stone pelting as 'Un-Islamic'.

Fayaz Wani reports on life in Srinagar, Kashmir.