Non-use of passports will help ultras: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has opposed the doing away with passports as a necessary travel document on the Srinangar-Muzaffarabad bus service, agreed to by India and Pakistan today.

The decision not to insist on passports as the travel document would only make it easier "for militants to cross over to India," said BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Naqvi said the BJP had always been in favour of people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan but the bus link, without passports would be detrimental to the peace and security of the country.

"This travel without passports would be a dangerous situation and the rise in violence in the Valley also do not encourage this kind of free movement," he said.

He referred to the targeting of candidates in the recently held local body polls in the Valley by militants.

"Candidates have been threatened, intimidated and even killed. In this situation is this proper," he asked.

When it was pointed out that there was a Parliamentary resolution which considered the Pak-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as an inalienable part of Indian territory and thus made the whole issue of passports a difficult technical quagmire, the party insisted that technical details should not come in the way of national security.

"One must be pragmatic to issues of national security," said Naqvi.

The BJP called the threats a "sign that the security situation in the country was out of the control of the central government."