JAMMU, India, 18 February 2007 — National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, echoing ruling coalition partner — the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) — yesterday asked for the removal of troops from Jammu and Kashmir as the situation is “conducive to taking such a step.”

The PDP, however, has raised its pitch and has made troop withdrawal a major issue with ally Congress. Its ministers have raised the issue in the Cabinet and the top leadership of the party, including former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti, has asked Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to withdraw their security cover.

The father-daughter duo now moves around in private cars instead of bullet-proof cars, although the rest of their security cover stays intact. Omar Abdullah told reporters yesterday that since the situation has improved in many quarters of Jammu and Kashmir, “troops should be removed from those places.”

He said his party is of the view that the presence of troops does not go well with the improvement in the situation. “We cannot afford to have an endless presence of troops in the state,” he said.

Abdullah said the National Conference will work hard to expose human rights abuse in the state. “We will seek definitive action against violators of the human rights abuses and our demand for a judicial probe is a result of the non-functioning of the human rights commission.

“Had the human rights commission been working properly, we would not have pressed for a judicial probe,” Abdullah said.

The National Conference stalled the working of the state legislature for three days last month, forcing the government to announce a judicial probe into the five alleged cases of fake encounters.

The party had also forced the government to announce a judicial probe into the killing of four boys in the northwestern Kashmiri village of Doodhpathri in Handwara.

On Thursday, New York-based Human Right Watch called for the establishment of a “credible and independent” commission to investigate disappearances of thousands of people in the state. “The Indian security forces have made countless people in Jammu and Kashmir disappear since 1989 and staged fake encounter killings while fabricating claims that those killed were militants,” Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director, said.