Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satypal Malik on Monday accused media of portraying Kashmir in a bad light and stated that even a single death from Kashmir get reported for weeks while cases from other states get ignored.
Addressing reporters here, Malik said, "In Delhi, the press is very negative about Jammu and Kashmir. I feel very bad. Even if a single person dies here, it remains in news for two weeks. In my own district everyday, five people die. Here no stone is thrown on tourists. On Meerut-Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur highway, almost every week one tourist is beaten but no one talks about it."
Governor Malik hails from Western Uttar Pradesh and was born in Baghpat district. He had won his first parliamentary election from state's Aligarh.
Later replying to a question, he asserted that Delimitation of constituencies in the state is only a rumour for now.
"Delimitation (of constituencies) is a constitutional matter, even the Home Ministry has not confirmed it. Right now these are only rumours", he said.
Assuring safety of Amarnath Yatra pilgrims, he said, "I assure you that Amarnath Yatra will be conducted successfully. We will provide full proof security to the pilgrims."
Malik also talked about resolving thousands of public grievances since after taking charge and said, "Most people have this complaint that they are not being heard. As of now I have heard about 70,000 grievances and took action on them. I have kept my phone opened and my WhatsApp is opened at all time."
Governor Malik also informed that master plan for Jammu and Kashmir has been prepared and the government has decided to construct 1 lakh new houses.
He also spoke about orgsing investment summit in the state, "We have created 45,000 new jobs. We are also going to orgse three-day investment summit in October this year. We are making two IT parks in Jammu and Srinagar."
In a startling revelation, Governor Malik also stated that he has picked a fight with a lot of mighty and powerful in uprooting corruption from the state.
"I am working with my utmost ability in this state. I have picked fights with big and powerful people in stopping corruption in the state. As much as corruption is concerned, I have cancelled two such deals in which 150 crore of monetary transaction was fixed. Very powerful people were involved, I have to go and tell the Prime Minister about it. In one deal, even Reliance was there, it wasn't paying money but a company in between was going to pay... I told the Prime Minister that if I am allowed to take this decision, I will remain (on this post) else I will sign on a paper and resign. These two deals, when they were cancelled, such powerful people were involved that they had direct access to the Prime Minister", he said.
( With inputs from ANI )