Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday held back-to-back meetings with top officials of the security establishment and bureaucrats dealing with Kashmir even as speculation over a key decision related to the state continued.
Shah met NSA Ajit Doval, home secretary Rajiv Gauba and Intelligence Bureau chief Arvind Kumar at his office in Parliament. The meeting, sources said, began at 11 am and continued till 12.30 pm. Nagaland Governor R N Ravi was also seen leaving the home minister’s office. It was not known whether he had a separate meeting with the minister or was part of the internal security meeting, where the NSA was present.
At around 2 pm, additional secretary (Kashmir Division) Gyanesh Kumar met Shah. The home minister is learnt to have discussed the current situation in Kashmir with him. “The discussion was largely about law and order and safety of citizens owing to the security threat input received recently regarding Kashmir. I do not think the issue of Article 35A or 370 was broached,” a home ministry official said. Kumar, himself, was not available for comment, nor did the home ministry give out any information. The meetings come ahead of the Cabinet meeting scheduled for Monday morning as well as Parliament, where the issue is likely to be raised by the Opposition.
A PTI report from Islamabad said Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday chaired a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) where the country’s top civil and military leadership discussed the sudden spike in tensions with India. The meeting was attended by defence minister Pervez Khattak, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and other top officials. Imran Khan repeated Pakistan’s allegation that India is using “cluster munitions” and asked the UN to take note.
India had on Saturday termed as “lies and deceit” the allegation that it had dropped cluster bombs on civilians along the Line of Control.
