The Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti has no moral right to claim that the National Investigation Agency is “harassing” the Hurriyat leaders and others, the National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah said on Monday.
Omar said the Hurriyat leaders like Mirwaiz Umar Farooq arefacing the NIA summons in a case filed during the tenure of Mehbooba Mufti asthe chief minister in 2017.
“Unlike Mehbooba, we used the NIA to provide justice to aLolab (Kupwara) resident, Liyaqat, who, after his return from Pakistan viaNepal, was arrested by the police at Delhi and sent to Tihar jail. I approachedthe then home minister and sought the NIA investigation in the case, whichlater found his return in accordance with the rehabilitation scheme for formermilitants, and set him free after a month,” Omar said, addressing a mammothgathering at Kunzar, Tangmarg on Monday.
Referring to “rampant” banning and arrest spree ofsocio-religious and separatist organisations and leaders in Kashmir recently,Omar said: “We conducted the most successful elections of 2014. At that time,we didn’t feel the need to ban the JeI. MoulanaMushtaqVeeri of Jamiat-Ahle-Hadees too is languishing in a jailtoday.”
Omar said the youths in Kashmir are detained for uploadingposts on social networking sites.
“It was Mehbooba Mufti who allowed the RSS to organise armedrallies across Jammu. First they brought RSS here (to J&K) and then gavethem permission to carry out armed rallies in different cities of Jammu. Formerely posting on social networking sites, our youths were detained innocturnal raids and no action was taken against those who took out armedrallies to create fear among the common people,” Omar said.
Omar was accompanied by party’s general secretary AliMuhammad Sagar, provisional president Nasir AslamWani, Sharief-u-Din Shariq,Nazir Ahmad Gurezi, BasharatBukhari, ShammiOberoi, TanvirSadiq and ShowkatAhmad. This was Omar’s first election rally in northern Kashmir.
Slamming the PDP and its president, Omar said the “bond” ofPDP’s friendship with the BJP was “so sacred for Mehbooba Mufti that when someboys were killed in an incident at Noorabad in southern Kashmir in 2016, shejustified their killing by saying that ‘boys had gone to attack the camps orpolice stations with stones and not to fetch milk or toffees and such acts willbe replied with bullets’”, he said.
The PDP and its leaders “belittled” the mandate of thepeople in 2014, Omar said.
He said the PDP sought mandate to “keep BJP out”, but “whatfollowed was an apt case of political opportunism where the PDP made analliance with the same party it wanted to keep out”.
Omar said the National Conference assured the PDP of itsunconditional support in 2014 and had asserted that with the help of Congress,we would form a government which will keep the BJP out. But the PDP leaders’obsession with the BJP continued and they formed an alliance with the sameparty against which they got a mandate from the people, he said.
“I told Mufti sahib: it is not the BJP of AtalBihariVajpayee who said talks with Kashmiris will be held under the ambit ofinsaniyat and jamhooriyat but it is the BJP of NarendraModi and Amit Shah.There is a huge difference in the then and the present BJP, but Mufti Sayeedinsisted that the alliance will bring a new hope, prosperity and pave way tobridge the gap between India and Pakistan,” Omar said.
“What happened to those daydreams of getting power projectsback, new era of friendship between the two countries and getting adequaterelief for the flood affected people of 2014?” Omar questioned.
Asking the people “not to fall prey to PDP’s slogan ofprotecting the special status and Article 35A”, Omar said the PDP “dideverything to dilute the state’s special status”.
He said had they (PDP leaders) been sincere in their resolveof protecting the special status, they would have acted on their formerminister’s two-page document demanding action against people involved in a fakestate subject certificate scandal.
“However, to protect her chair, she did not act. How willshe protect special status when she could not act on the fake state subject(certificate) scandal?” Omar asked.
He said Mehbooba Mufti and her party’s intention about thespecial status of Jammu and Kashmir can be gauged from the fact that “shebrought the food security law and extended central tax regime GST to the statewithout taking into consideration its far-reaching implications on ourartisans, hoteliers, and other marginal traders and common masses”.
“The food security law was framed during the Manmohan Singhregime. Despite pressure from the Congress to implement it in J&K, Irefused because I knew its implications on the people,” Omar said.
Omar said the National Conference “keeping in view theherculean task of putting up a strong front to protect the state’s specialconstitutional status, has fielded the most suitable candidates from the threeparliamentary constituencies of Kashmir”. “Our candidate for southern Kashmiris a legal luminary, justiceHassnainMasudi, whose pronounced judgments andarticles reveal his legal acumen and dedication,” he said.
“Our candidate from northern Baramulla constituency isMuhammad Akbar Lone, again a former advocate, who has served at many key postsin the state cabinet. He is a fighter and we wanted a person of his standingand political acumen who could fight for the interests of our state in theLokSabha,” Omar said, adding: “For Srinagar, we could not think of anybodyother than Dr Farooq Abdullah. A four-time chief minister, he has beenrepresenting the state in RajyaSabha and LokSabha. Having a person of hisnational standing representing state in LokSabha will benefit the interests ofthe state”.