Nobody except BJP countered separatists' lies: Jaitley

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) Accusing the Kashmiri separatist forces of spreading lies of Hindu colonisation and economic blockade of the Valley, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said nobody, except the BJP, had countered the false propoganda of the Hurriyat parties.

In an interview with CNN-IBN, Mr Jaitley, who has been the BJP's voice at the all-party meetings convened by the Centre, said when the separatists ''lied'' to the whole world about these two issues, nobody in the Valley, neither the Jammu and Kashmir Government nor the Centre countered it. Only the BJP was countering the lies of the Hurriyats.

Even today, it was the BJP, which was asserting that the land transfer should take place, as it was a result of the law enacted by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature in pursuant to the directions of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

He did not agree with the figures of the Jammu and Kashmir Horticulture Department that there was a 60 per cent drop in the number of trucks plying from Srinagar and Bannihal pass with only 890 fruit trucks compared to 2148 trucks passing the two destinations last year.

If there is a bandh in Jammu for 50 days and curfew for 30-odd days, the business was bound to go down. The current period was not apple season as claimed by the separatists but babbgosh Mr Jaitely said. The state authorities had told him when he was in Kashmir that there were 90 trucks waiting, but had no fruits or vegetables to transport.

''It was a false propoganda and the fall in traffic could be because of the bandh and curfew and not because of any economic blockade,'' he told the interviewer.

He said it was ''absolutely incorrect'' to suggest that the BJP ministers in the Punjab government were disrupting the movement of truck at Madhopur by camping at Pathankot. The Akali Dal leadership had personally intervened and stated that there could be protests on roads and not on the National Highway. Any stoppage of traffic could not be because of economic blockade, he contended.

Mr Jaitley, however, conceded there was problem for a day, because of the demonstration on the Highway and the party issued fiats that the demonstrations should be off the National Highway.

He said if anybody says that there was an economic blockade, he is only giving weightage to the separatists' falsehood. The Army, Centre and the Sanghash Samiti of Jammu were of the opinion that there was never a blockade.

He refused to accept the suggestion that ''Kashmir was a 'disrupted territory'''.

''It was Pakistan's position after Indepdendence ... it (Pakistan) must accept that Kashmir is an integral part of India and India, under no circumstances, will barter away even an inch of its territory,'' Mr Jaitley asserted.

The interview is to be telecast later today.

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