‘If JK, India, Pakistan have to progress, bullets have to stop’
Reiterating that the attack carried by militants on CRPF men in Pampore was un-Islamic, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti Thursday said destroying eight families during the fasting month of Ramadan was unjust.
In her concluding speech of the budget session in the Legislative Assembly, Mehbooba said if the CRPF men would have retaliated and caused civilian casualties, the people who supported the attacks would have called for strike.
“I felt bad to see eight coffins of CRPF men knowing that eight families had been devastated, eight families had lost their family members,” she said. “I also used to go to meet the families of the militants when they used to get killed in gunfights and would feel bad seeing their parents, sometime elderly parents losing their dear ones.”
The chief minister said in Ramadan, when even a number of permissible things are not permissible, opening fire and destroying eight families is un-Islamic.
Lauding police, paramilitary forces and Army, she said they had been offering sacrifices and fighting with bravery and were part of the society.
Eight CRPF men were killed and 20 others injured in a daredevil militant attack on CRPF convoy in Pampore area on Srinagar-Jammu highway on Saturday. Two militants were also killed in the gunfight.
Lashkar-e-Toiba owned the attack while State BJP created war hysteria calling on New Delhi to carry surgical attacks on Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK) and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointing finger at Pakistan for the attack.
Mehbooba said if Jammu and Kashmir had to progress, if India had to progress, and if Pakistan had to progress, bullets had to stop.
“Both the conventional war as well as the proxy war has to end,” she said.
Deputy Chief Minister, Nirmal Singh had accused Pakistan of carrying proxy war and said the attack on highway was a cross-border issue.
Referring to the opposition, the chief minister said they need not remind her government about the importance of dialogue process between New Delhi and Islamabad, and New Delhi and separatists, as all initiatives during the past 27 years on India and Pakistan that had brought the two countries a bit closer were taken during Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s tenure as CM.
“From 2006 to 2014, none of these initiatives were carried on,” she said accusing the subsequent governments of failure on carrying the dialogue process forward.
Mehbooba said carrying talks forward was part of her government’s agenda.
She said the self-rule that her party advocates lays emphasis on the opening of roads, letting people living across the two sides of divided Kashmir move freely, allowing banking facilities for cross-LoC trade, communication and starting talks.
“We have already moved forward in this direction but everything will not happen at once,” the chief minister said. “During the time of Mufti sahab as CM and L K Advani as Home Minister, talks between New Delhi and separatists started and the Hurriyat was told to get a roadmap for Kashmir resolution in the next meeting but that meeting never happened.”
Crediting India for its democratic system, she said former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto believed that India was vibrant because of its democracy.
“Our neighbor is unstable and the Muslim world is caught in strife,” Mehbooba said. “I’m a Muslim, I love Islam, the real Islam, the Islam of the Prophet (SAW) but not the Islam that is propagated these days, the Islam where slogan of Allahu Akbar is raised while slitting the throats of the people.”
Continuing her tirade against Pakistan, she said the country was facing abject poverty yet its government was spending money in a blind arms race.
“In Pakistan everything from a needle to an airplane, comes from outside and India is facing abject poverty too but the two countries are caught in a war and that war is on Jammu Kashmir but if people die what is the land for,” Mehbooba said.
Referring to her remarks on Kashmir’s clergy, she said she had been mistaken.
“My paternal grandfather was Mufti Azam and maternal grandfather was a Waizkhan and forget about the people even birds would stop chirping for a while to listen to his Waiz,” the chief minister said. “So, how can I be against clergy?”
She said she was only making the point that Imams should take up social issues like drug addiction, corruption, and drug addiction in their sermons and help the society get rid of these evils.
Referring to the SRO-105 issue, Mehbooba said people were sensitive to issues now and it was not a regional or religious issue and when the issue of mining contract had come up, even the BJP MLAs had raised an outcry as they understood that it would affect the people of Jammu too.
SRO 105 granted bidding rights for mineral excavation to non-state subjects to which the opposition objected and the government responded by constituting a 16-member panel of the Legislative Assembly which recommended amendments in the SRO.
However, she said if the government would delve further on the issue, skeletons would tumble out of wardrobes and people would come to know that people who own these mines are the relatives of politicians.
Referring to remarks of the former chief minister and Leader of the Opposition, Omar Abdullah that her government was inexperienced, the chief ministers said he was correct in pointing that out.
“Omar sahab said we are not experienced and, yes, we are not experienced and at least I’m the not experienced,” she said. “When Omar sahab took over as the CM, he had already been a minister in the NDA government while Mufti sahab was CM only for 3 years and as CM I’m least experienced.”
Earlier, Omar had attributed the discord between the PDP and BJP over land bill over the inexperience of the cabinet.
However, Mehbooba said she would not allow this inexperience come in way of her governance saying, “We will take time but deliver better in future while opposition will raise fingers and blame us for inexperience.”
Terming the decision of the PDP’s alliance with BJP the correct path, she quoted a Quranic verse, “Ihdina Sirat al-Mustaqim (Guide us on the straight path).”
The chief minister said whenever anything unwarranted happens in Jammu now, the BJP MLAs run there to control the situation as it was their responsibility now to maintain brotherhood and communal harmony.
