Mehbooba accuses admin of brazen bias against PDP

Anantnag: A former Home Minister of Jammu and Kashmir was among nine people affiliated with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who were booked for organizing a public gathering that “may result in spreading of Covid-19 and other related epidemics.”
The FIR, bearing number 4 of 2022 under sections 269 and 188, has been registered at police station Bijbehara, here in Anantnag district, where a PDP rally was organized on Friday on the sixth death anniversary of former Chief Minister and PDP patron, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.
Abdul Rehman Veeri, a senior member of the PDP and a former Home Minister has been booked for the “offence”, along with some lesser-known party workers. Former Chief Minister and PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, who was leading the gathering has not been named in the FIR though.
Mehbooba had reached the graveyard of her father Friday morning and was accompanied by dozens of party workers including some senior leaders as well to pray at her father’s grave located in Padshahi Bagh area of the main town Bijbehara.
“Dramatic scenes were witnessed outside the graveyard as security forces initially did not allow Mehbooba or other party workers to enter the graveyard,” a source in the PDP told Kashmir Reader.
After much ado, they were allowed to enter and pray at the graveyard following which Mehbooba called for unity among Kashmiri people to fight what she termed as an onslaught on Kashmiri identity.
“Every Dogra, Kashmiri, Gujjar, or anyone living in Jammu and Kashmir has to stand up and fight against this onslaught. Otherwise, what these people are doing here in the name of land summits and other things, the time is not far when Kashmiri youth will have no space left to set their foot on,” Mehbooba said while talking to reporters.
She also alleged that her party workers were being hounded by the authorities and called upon her workers to unite and fight. “Gundagardi nahi chalegi,” and “yeh Kashmir humara hai,” slogans were raised by the agitated party workers who assembled around Mehbooba.
On Friday evening, Tehsildar Bijbehara named Veeri and eight others in a letter and sought an FIR against them for violating the Covid guidelines. Copies of the letter, addressed to police station Bijbehara, were also sent to Deputy Commissioner Anantnag, SSP Anantnag, and SDM Bijbehara.
“As such you are directed to book these persons under relevant sections of law and intimate this office immediately,” the letter read.
Police took cognizance and have registered the FIR for doing an act, unlawfully and negligently, which might result in the spread of an infection and for disobedience of an order duly promulgated by a public servant.
For now, no arrests have been made in this regard, however.
Soon after the news, Mehbooba took to Twitter and criticized the administration for the FIR. “Covid restrictions apply only to PDP. Not to BJP’s protest in Kashmir yesterday, PMs rally in Punjab or the mass Poojas attended by hundreds of people to pray for his safety,” She tweeted.
She further wrote that the action by the administration talks volumes about the JK administration’s, “brazen bias against my party”.

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Suhail A Shah