National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti Monday expressed dismay over mob attacks on Kashmiris in several states and urged the government of India to ensure safety and security of people from the Valley.
In a joint appeal, the two former chief ministers underscored the need to “maintain communal harmony across the country,” asserting that “by attacking, terrorising, intimidating Kashmiris, the youngsters of Kashmir are implicitly being told that they have no future outside the Valley”.
“Intimidating Kashmiris is aimed at creating a wedge between different communities in India. We should not allow terror to divide us. By using such incidents to divide us, we fall into the trap of those behind the attack on CRPF personnel. We are wittingly or unwittingly playing to the tunes of our enemies,” Mehbooba and Omar said.
Attacking innocent people because of their ethnicity or religion is no way to honour the sacrifice of the CRPF men, they said. “Kashmiri Muslims or the Muslims of Jammu didn’t attack our CRPF personnel the other day; militants did. This violence is a convenient tool by some to shift the blame. Let us unite against terror, let’s not allow terror to divide us,” they said.
Omar and Mehbooba maintained that it was tragic to “see educated and civilised people spearheading vicious propaganda to paint Kashmiris and militants with the same brush”.
“The thought behind such attacks is to divide us. Our pain must not fuel such diabolical plans because eventually the axe forgets and the tree remembers,” they said.
Expressing dismay over the “continuous rhetoric being used against Kashmiris”, the leaders said: “No mainstream political party will condone militancy. The ferocity of the rhetoric by certain media channels is also dangerous. They churn lies, hatred and divisive agenda by berating the national interests”. Concerned over reports of violence and arson in Jammu, Mehbooba and Omar described the happenings in the winter capital as “worrying”. They urged the political dispensation and civil society of Jammu to “ensure that cooler heads prevail”.
Making an earnest appeal to the government of India to ensure the directions issued to all state governments on ensuring safety and security of Kashmiris is implemented, the two leaders said: “It doesn’t augur well for a democratic country like India to hound its own people in its response to the heinous attack on our forces. Hounding innocent Kashmiris will indisputably disenchant them; the humiliation, suspicion, isolation will push innocent Kashmiris to the wall”.
“As a country we need to stand together in this hour of grief and sorrow and not allow forces inimical to unity in our country to find any space,” Mehbooba and Omar said in the joint appeal.