Srinagar July 22: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti has said the Manzgam (Kulgam) incident once again underlines failure of the state government to learn from its own blunders and refusal to build an atmosphere of trust and accountability.
Mehbooba visited Manzgam Friday to meet the 32 year old Rukaya Bano who had complained of having been abducted and raped by army personnel.
 In a statement issued here today, PDP spokesman said that Mehbooba reached Manzgam early in the morning and walked up to the Gujjardar locality on the nearby hills to visit the home of the victim. “She, however, found out that Rukaya had been taken by police at 7 am and was still to be returned to her family,” the spokesman said. He said the people of the area having assembled in large numbers had become restive apprehending foul play in investigation.
 Addressing the gathering Mehbooba urged them to remain peaceful in their quest for justice so that the trigger-happy government was not able to invent a reason for use of force.
 According to the statement, Mehbooba agreed with the request of the crowd that she stay put in Manzgam till Rukaya returned home. “Mehbooba left Manzgam around 3 PM only after confirming the lady was brought back to her home and after she had spoken to her on phone from Manzgam,” the statement said and added that earlier, the IGP Kashmir came to Manzgam to plead with Mehbooba to leave the village which she refused to do unless the lady was back home.
 Mehbooba, according to the statement, said the present government had created a credibility crisis for itself and the entire system that has shaken the confidence of the people in the institutions. “Had the government not mishandled and covered up the crime against two young Shopian women in 2009, the investigation into every incident would not have been viewed with suspicion” she said and urged the police to function in a purely professional and neutral way “irrespective of government’s petty considerations.” She said if the government had allowed investigation of just one case of last year’s 120 killings by forces and taken that to logical conclusion the situation would have been completely different from the one prevailing now in which the governance is reduced to day to day management through force of a larger crisis facing the state.
 The PDP president said the government’s callous attitude and incompetence is forcing people to agitate on every issue apprehending foul play. “The same attitude had triggered unrest in Manzgam as the victim was reportedly in a distraught condition and in no position to be interrogated but still picked up by police,” she said and added that instead of taking the locals into confidence the victim was taken early in the morning fuelling further suspicion.
 Reiterating her demand for a thorough probe into the allegations of rape, Mehbooba said there was no substitute to transparency if the shattered public confidence in institutional functioning was to be restored. She said government must come clean on all such incidents of dishonour and killings, identify the culprits and have them punished. Responding to the police claim that Mehbooba had been ‘rescued by it’ the statement said police seems to be bent on following the government directive in its anxiety to forfeit all credibility. “The way the police had behaved in Shopian two years back always remind the people of how its methods of ‘rescuing the opposition leader’ are in fact meant to achieve objectives to the contrary,” it said.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST