Srinagar, July 11: The president of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition leader, Mehbooba Mufti, on Sunday stuck to her stand to stay away from an all-party meeting convened by the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to discuss the present situation in Kashmir despite an appeal by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to reconsider her stand.
Addressing a news conference here, Mehbooba said that Prime Minister had telephoned her yesterday and had asked her to reconsider the decision. “I have deep regard and respect for the Prime Minister. He had advised us to participate in the meeting. But I conveyed my inability to do so,” Mehbooba said.
She thanked the Prime Minister for making a call to her. “I told the Prime Minister to excuse us. I told him that there is a need for intervention at the highest level. We are looking forward for bigger initiative from him, which can give some relief to the people on ground,” she said.
“The Prime Minister has the credibility and authority. He should take serious initiatives for restoring peoples hopes on the system after having lost confidence on the state government,” she added.
She also thanked union, Home Minister, P Chidambaram, who she said, had also spoken to her. Mehbooba said she appealed the Prime Minister to lift the curbs on media, especially the local media. “I also appealed him to withdraw the Army and to put an end to crackdowns on the civilian population.”
The state government, she said, was doing nothing on the ground even as the situation was deteriorating. “The government has called the meeting after the situation went out of the hand. The state government has been discredited as people have been made to live in a jail.”
She said the government had used “extreme kind of force” to suppress the anguish of people and hide its failures.
Mehbooba said  the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, was trying to control the damage on the national level. “He is not bothered about the situation. We have seen him on TV impressing that he is the only nationalist and everyone in Kashmir is anti-national. We are seeing some fire fighting measures being taken at the central level to douse the fire at international level as well but nobody is concerned about the situation at the ground zero,” she said.
She said the Chief Minister’s statement—about the invitation to the all party meeting on a TV news channel—sounded like former US president George Bush’s ultimatum that “whether I want to be part of the problem or part of the solution.”
She said nothing was going to come out of the meeting.
She said she had written a letter to the Chief Minister a month back asking him to call a special session.

PTI ADDS FROM DELHI
CONG ASKS MEHBOOBA TO ATTEND ALL-PARTY MEETING
 Meanwhile, Congress today urged all mainstream parties in the Valley to help bring normalcy in the situation.
 “PM has already appealed to PDP to attend the all-party meeting there. Congress believes that every party which is in the main stream in the Valley should realise the seriousness of the situation and join together to restore normalcy,” party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed told PTI.
 Ahmed’s comments came after Mehbooba Mufti of PDP turned down Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s request to attend the meeting.
 Reacting to the development, Ahmed said “All political parties should contribute to bring back normalcy in the Valley.”
 Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh also appealed to Mehbooba to reconsider her stand in the Valley’s interest and attend the all-party meeting.
 “It is in everyone’s interest that peace returns in Kashmir Valley and we should rise above politics. I would urge upon the PDP, particularly Mufti Sahib and Mehbooba, to reconsider their decision and participate (in the meeting) in bringing back peace in Valley,” Singh said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST