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Jammu: The Amarnath land row refuses to die down in the Hindu dominated Jammu region even as voices of dissent have started appearing among the outfits demanding the restoration of the land to the temple trust.
Demanding that 40 hectares of forest land transferred to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) should stay with the trust, Hindu outfits led protests in the winter capital.
Governor N.N. Vohra, who is also ex officio chairman of the SASB, relinquished the land, in south Kashmir Baltal forest area, back to the state government after the Muslim majority Kashmir Valley witnessed violent protests.
The previous Congress-led government on July 1 cancelled the land allotment order ending one controversy but beginning another over the issue, which gained a communal edge in the state.
The decision by former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad quietened the violent protests in the valley but stirred up demonstrations led by Hindu groups in the plains of Jammu.
The Jammu region observed shutdown for eleven continuous days till last Tuesday, which was called off for a week. The cancellation of protests led to dissent within the Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti, an umbrella organisation of different outfits, demanding the restoration of the land to the SASB.
Charging each other
And those leading the agitation, including the Jammu Bar Association, Peoples Revolutionary Movement and the National Panthers Party, are now charging each other of showing "weakness".
Despite their consensus on the "cause of Jammu", the region they feel has been discriminated against by the Kashmiri rulers and salt rubbed into their wounds by the revocation of the order, they are openly in the game of finger pointing.
"We are not interested in becoming leaders of the agitation but if the people want, we will not hesitate to don that role," said Jammu Bar Association President Baldev Singh Salathia, who resigned from the post of additional advocate general before launching the agitation.
He was annoyed the way the Sangarsh Samiti suspended the "shutdown call".
Salathia termed the suspension of the protests as a "sign of weakness".
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