UNITED NATIONS/SRINAGAR: Ruling out any United Nations intervention in Kashmir unless both India and Pakistan approached the world body, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on Monday hoped the two South Asian neighbors would be able to find a solution to it through dialogue in a peaceful manner.
“If and when both parties (India and Pakistan) to this issue (Kashmir) request ... ask me to provide my good offices, I am willing to do that,” Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York on his return from his four-nation tour of Philippines, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Given India’s known stand on this issue, this is unlikely to happen. New Delhi has always opposed any international intervention on the Kashmir issue.
“But as you know, good offices (of the UN secretary-general) are available when and whenever there is some agreed requests from both parties,” Ban said in response to a specific question from a Pakistani journalist if the secretary-general was willing to offer his good offices to find a solution to the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Indian security forces have sounded a general alert and launched a massive manhunt, after a top militant commander escaped from police custody while being presented in a local court in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district yesterday afternoon.
Police in Srinagar said Raees Ahmad Dar alias Kachroo, arrested district commander of Hizbul Mujahedeen outfit had been taken to Pulwama by a police escort from the central jail Srinagar yesterday morning.
“As soon as the police party along with Kachroo reached the court complex in Pulwama town, some unidentified accomplices of the arrested militant fired at the police escort, critically injuring one constable holding the chain to the militants handcuff,” a senior police officer said.
— With input from Mukhtar Ahmed
