SRINAGAR: On the foundation day of Peoples Democratic Party (PDS), its president Mehbooba Mufti took a jibe at its former coalition partner BJP as well as the Hurriyat for their politics in Jammu and Kashmir, on Wednesday.
Addressing PDP leaders on the party’s 22nd foundation day, Mufti first equated BJP with the East India Company, saying both did not bother about the people and the resources of the land that was under their control.
“For the BJP, like for the East India Company, every citizen of the country is a suspect and guilty until proven innocent. Jammu and Kashmir was the only Muslim-majority state in the country and it was bifurcated and dismembered. BJP has sacrificed Jammu and Kashmir for its vote bank,” she said.
She also said that the Hurriyat missed opportunities by closing doors on dialogue in 2016 when a parliamentary delegation visited the Hurriyat Conference leaders, who refused to open their doors.
“It could not have solved the issue but it would have opened opportunities for dialogue,” she said.
The former chief minister said that her party was committed to fight for the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A. These two articles, abrogated two years ago by the BJP-led central government, gave quasi-autonomous powers to the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State.
“It took the BJP 70 years to abrogate Article 370, so even if it takes us 70 months to restore it, we will make it happen. Don’t lose faith. We have to fight peacefully,” she said.
She also asked youth to refrain from the gun because it is used against Kashmirs. There are forces, she said, who want Kashmiri youth to pick up the gun so that they get more opportunities to suppress Kashmiris.
“I want to tell these youths: don’t pick up guns. You are being killed and you are leaving your parents behind,” she said.
She also reiterated that the PDP hasn’t changed its stand as it still believes that resolution of the Kashmir issue is fundamental to the people’s wishes.
“Whether we formed the government with Congress or the BJP, we made it the first condition that there should be talks with Pakistan and efforts to resolve the problem,” she said. “In fact, at the Prime Minister’s meeting (in Delhi in June), I raised the issue of the booking of two sons of Hurriyat leader Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai. At Sehrai’s funeral, someone raised slogans and they took away his two sons and booked them.”
She said that talking to Pakistan was not any sedition as it had been agreed by both countries to talk on various issues. “What is wrong when Mehbooba Mufti talks to Pakistan to stop the bloodshed in Kashmir?” she asked. “Is not there a Shimla agreement, Tashkent agreement, Lahore agreement between India and Pakistan on Kashmir?”