SRINAGAR: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said her party was not merely demanding statehood but the restoration of pre-August 2019 status for Jammu and Kashmir. She also called for resumption of dialogue for the resolution of the Kashmir issue and alleged that there was “jungle raj” in the country.
“We are not demanding (the return of) statehood. We are demanding the pre-August 5, 2019 position of J&K and we also want the Kashmir issue — for which thousands of youth have rendered sacrifices, lakhs of homes have been destroyed and losses in millions of rupees have been suffered — to be resolved by talking to Pakistan and the people of J&K,” Mufti said. The PDP chief was speaking to reporters after the party”s convention in north Kashmir”s Kupwara district. Mufti said and people were being arrested first and then their crime was being proven. “There is a saying that show me a person, I will show you the crime, which means that first they arrest a person, then they prove the crime. Many of our leaders are in custody and they have been shown no orders and there is nothing against them. “There is jungle raj here right now, the jungle raj is happening across the country also now, but it is more so in J&K,” she said.
On the arrest of National Conference (NC) leader Hilal Lone, the former chief minister of the erstwhile state said the BJP government was “inflicting cruelty” on the people of Kashmir as well as the people in other parts of the country. “Wherever they think there is some resistance, someone is raising his voice against their cruelty and tyranny, see they have arrested a 21-year-old girl, what they have done with the farmers… Some of the cruelty and tyranny that they have done in Kashmir is being witnessed in other parts of the country. “Our farmer brothers and young girls are also now seeing what cruelty the BJP government is inflicting upon the people of Kashmir,” she said. Asked about the future of the People”s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), an alliance of several mainstream parties seeking the return of the special status of the erstwhile state, Mufti said the people want the alliance to continue.
“The Gupkar alliance talks about the aspirations of the people of J&K. The people of J&K want the alliance to continue and this alliance will be there till the people of J&K want it to be,” she said.
Mufti also demanded immediate release of all political prisoners and youths, including former MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid who is under detention since August 5, 2019 when the Centre abrogated Article 370.
