Jammu, Sept 16: JKPCC has expressed serious concern over the news reports of some Jammu students & youth along with other youth from elsewhere in the country, getting trapped in the war zone of Russia-Ukraine and asked the Centre government to immediately act to rescue them safely & return them home.
Taking serious note of the distress call of some youth from Jammu for immediate help, as reported in the media, who had gone to Russia for study purpose, having got trapped there and pushed into a war zone, risking their lives along with a few other youth of our country, the party expressed grave concern in the matter and asked the Modi government to rescue them safely without delay. The people are worried about the safety of our youth, who should be immediately rescued, they demanded.
The meeting also expressed concern over the delay in granting a comprehensive relief package by the centre as a result the relief, rehabilitation, restoration and reconstruction measures are at a very slow pace.
In an urgent meeting of Senior Congress leaders in Jammu, presided over by Working President Shri Raman Bhalla , issue of tapped youth in war zone in Russia besides the present situation arising out of the devastation caused by the incessant rains and floods was discussed & grave concern was shown over the slow pace of relief, rehabilitation and restoration measures in entire Jammu region in the absence of relief package from centre.
The leaders expressed great concern over the delay on the part of centre government is granting a comprehensive package for the relief, restoration, rehabilitation, and reconstruction measures of different affected areas and the suffering people.
People in several remote areas are living in insecure conditions and no efforts are being made to shift & relocate them to safer areas, while others are staying in their localities without the urgent restoration of water supplies and road connectivity, which were disturbed due to landslides and erosion of link roads, making it difficult for the inhabitants to resume their normal activities.
The meeting also discussed the issue of the dislocated, displaced people staying away due to landslides, sinking of lands and extensive damage to their houses but the resettlement & rehabilitation measures are still lacking. The winter is fast approaching in certain cold zone region and the delay can be very harsh for the people.
Senior leaders former minister Mula Ram,Th. Balwan Singh, Ravinder Sharma, Yogesh Sawhney, Ved Mahajan, Th Hari Singh Chib, Th Manmohan Singh, Hari Singh Chib, Virinder Singh, Hussain Ali Waffa, Gurdarshan Singh, Sanjeev Panda, Neeraj Gupta, Vijay Sharma(Seva Dal) Madan Lal (OBC), Bharat Priye (Kissan), Vijay Shastri, Rajesh Sharma, Latish Sharma, Sohit Sharma, Latish Sharma, attended the meeting.
The meeting strongly criticized the government for ignoring the demand for high level probe into the Vaishno Devi tragedy and also into reasons behind Chashoti tragedy. Over 135 lost lives or missing in both these tragedies, alone out of all deaths incessant rains / floods since last month.
The government should immediately order high level probe into the tragedies besides another high level probe aided by technical experts to find out the man made lapses leading to damages to the public infrastructure especially bridges, roads, government buildings and the role of illegal mining at Various places. The failure to take the routine activities for the safeguards from floods like embankments, strengthening process, de- silting and other protection measures, which were not done in past several years as revealed by the people of the respective areas and technical persons to team of PCC headed by President PCC to different areas in the past few weeks.
Centre should also depute a high level team of experts to examine the cause of unprecedented number incidents of landslides, sinking of land and cloudbursts at various places and study the ecological factors viz a viz the developmental projects of various sorts undertaken in past few years in the hilly & mountainous region of Jammu province.