Srinagar: The BJP on Saturday bought peace with an overeager Mehbooba Mufti government in Jammu and Kashmir by forwarding to the chief minister the resignations of two ministers caught up in the Kathua controversy.
Grabbing the face-saver with alacrity, Mehbooba and her People's Democratic Party hailed as a confidence-building measure the way the rest of the country had expressed outrage over the rape and murder of a child in Kathua.
But the BJP virtually gave a clean chit to the two ministers, who had sprung to the defence of the accused.
The BJP also sought to address the concerns of its core constituency in Hindu-majority Jammu by demanding that the Mehbooba government scrap an order sympathetic to nomadic tribes, including that to which the eight-year-old victim belonged.
The state government has been told to withdraw the directive on forestland encroachments by nomads, PTI quoted Ram Madhav, the BJP's minder for the state, as saying in Jammu.
The Mehbooba government had directed district administrations to not provide "police protection" for anti-encroachment drives against tribal populations without prior approval. It said the tribes should not be dislocated till a policy was formulated.
"The directive issued and circulated among different districts must be withdrawn. This we have told the government already," Madhav said.
The brutalised child belonged to a tribal Muslim community that has been fighting for land rights. Investigators suspect the crime was committed to drive the community out of the forest areas in Jammu.
Friday's resignation by the two BJP ministers - Choudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga - has helped calm tempers in the PDP, which was desperate to continue the alliance.
The PDP and the BJP held separate meetings in Srinagar and Jammu and iterated their commitment to the alliance. Senior PDP minister Nayeem Akhtar was all praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The incident, though tragic, has triggered an emotional bond between people in the state and outside," he said.
Mehbooba lauded the country's political leadership, judiciary, media and civil society for standing by her government to "ensure justice" for the child.
In Jammu, Madhav said: "Certainly, there was a lack of discretion (on the two ministers' part).... Lack of discretion does not amount to guilt. (But) it led to a misconception and they resigned."
He claimed the two had gone to Kathua to pacify a crowd, although video clips show them instigating the mob.