Srinagar, June 30: Entire Kashmir is on the roads, seething against the land grab, ready to explode any time. And rage is also spreading fast among the police and troops. Stretched to limits, they may even run amuck, itching to show their hands to the “Pakistani crowd” (overheard outside a bank, where this writer had gone to withdraw some cash from ATM). While Rome is burning, Romeo is playing the flute. Since Friday evening a section of the electronic media was agog with the rumors that settlement of the issue is just hours away but for almost two days, there is nothing forthcoming. And on Sunday morning, after so many more casualties and a long wait, the chief minister tried to push down the throat of Kashmiris a half-baked solution. But people are in no mood to take the bait and oblige him. Thus the situation becomes rife with the apprehensions of more bloodshed. Had the government been really serious to diffuse the explosive situation in its initial stage, it could have convened the cabinet meeting to revoke the order formally, once the Raj Bhavan started the ball rolling on the Friday evening itself. But it did not want PDP and NC to take the credit. On their part also, the PDP and NC played criminal; in the zest for the credit taking they spilled the beans about the likely settlement after their meetings with the governor. While power hungry politicians were hunting for the credit where
