Srinagar May 18: A day after Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Ali Muhammad Sagar said the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would relinquish power if separatists join the mainstream politics, senior Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Tariq Hameed Qara on Friday mocked at National Conference and termed it as an attempt to trivialize Kashmir issue.   
      “Ruling party has traditionally looked at Kashmir issue only in terms of power and nothing beyond that,” Qara said while addressing party workers in old city here.  
      “NC rigged elections in 1987 when all elements of state politics were in the fray pushing them into resistance and the entire population into an unending trouble. Now who would buy its so called offer to give up power for which it has sacrificed thousands of lives of Kashmiris, resources of the state and its own conscience, he wondered. After 1996  elections when sky was on the platter for JK, the NC government found safety in selling the autonomy resolution and seven most feasible power projects as a price for power," Qara said. 
      Qarra said NC leaders made such offers only to mislead the people and hog headlines. Otherwise, it would have allowed at least a free election whenever it was in power, he added. “For NC all decisions taken by it always revolved round power arrangement, whether it was accession or the 1975 accord when it sold out immense sacrifices given by the people under its leadership. NC thought only of power for itself and its first family when it could have bargained for a fair political solution," he alleged. 
      Speaking on the occasion the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said, “Though it is unfair to compare three years with NC's three decades but our party tried to change the environment of despair and terror in which it had succeeded considerably.”
      She said process of dialogue had taken off at the highest level and jails had no political detainees. "The state instruments of abuse like the SOG and Ikhwan were dismantled but the present government brought back insecurity and police Raj" she alleged.
      “At least 120 youngsters were killed on the streets even though they carried no weapons. To add insult to injury NC had dubbed them as Lashkar activists, drug addicts, goondas and threat to peace. Even school going children were charged with murder, handcuffed, paraded publicly and thousands of them continue to face prosecution" she said.
      Referring to the complete collapse of governance Mehbooba said the death of 360 children in Srinagar pediatric hospital is a national tragedy for the state. Such a crisis was always in the making, but when we raised these issues in and out of assembly, the chief minister accused opposition of subverting his government, she said. "It needs a callous and conscience less government like the present one to brazen out such a grave issue without even expressing an apology to the kin of the infants" she added.            Mehbooba said the coalition government had only two uses for the funds received under various schemes. It either spends them for benefiting their favorite contractors or making back door appointment of its storm troopers who actually make up the ready to use audience for its 'public meetings', she said. The hospital development fund was utilized to pay wages of NC workers resulting in the tragedies like the one in G B Pant hospital. She said though hospitals have been stuffed with hundreds of NC workers, the posts of nurses and paramedical staff who are actually needed are nobody's business.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 IST