Chief minister Says Mehbooba Mufti said she hopes that under the leadership of Narendra Modi, her government will be able to steer the state towards peace. (File Photo)
The occasion was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to Jammu and Kashmir after the Mehbooba Mufti led uneasy PDP-BJP alliance formed the government in the state and the chief minister Ms Mufti chose it to raise the Handwara killings.
The chief minister said she hopes that under the leadership of Mr Modi her government will be able to steer the state towards peace.
Kashmir needs a healing touch, she said. "Kashmir's heart is in pain.
We have to collectively find a remedy for that, so that every corner of our state will become happy and prosperous like rest of the country," Ms Mufti said in Katra, 50 km from Jammu, where PM Modi inaugurated a super-speciality hospital and a sports stadium.
In an apparent reference to non-local students who have been demanding moving the National Institute of Technology at Srinagar out of the valley, Ms Mufti said students are guests here and the state's ambassadors outside. "We are taught, 'atithi devo bhavo.'Let us treat students from the rest of country as our guests so that they become our ambassadors," she said.
Earlier this month protests had erupted at NIT Srinagar after non-Kashmiri students alleged police high handedness and boycotted classes.
Mr Modi remained silent about the current Kashmir unrest that spread after violence in Handwara. But, he did invoke former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and spoke of "Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat and Jamhuriyat (the Kashmiri ethos, humanity and democracy)" for finding solutions to all the problems of the state.
"We have to take Jammu Kashmir to new heights. We have added the colour of sabka saath, sabka vikas to the dreams of Mr Vajpayee," he said.