A Bharatiya Janata Party leader on Wednesday requested Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra to revoke former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s order to drop cases against stone-pelters in the Valley.
In his letter to the governor, BJP leader Ajay Agrawal said the order was against the law and should be cancelled in “overall national interest”.
Agrawal argued that the state government had decided to withdraw such cases without taking into consideration the opinion of the individual paramilitary/Army and other personnel who were the victims. “[The] State has no power to withdraw a case in which injury was caused to an individual and his consent is not obtained prior to moving withdrawal of prosecution application by the state government, which is against the set procedure of the withdrawal of these criminal cases,” he said.
The letter comes a day after the ruling coalition in the state collapsed when the BJP ended its alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party.
In February, the Jammu and Kashmir government said it would withdraw the cases filed against 9,730 people between 2008 and 2017 for stone-pelting incidents. The government’s decision to not pursue the 1,745 cases was subject to “certain conditions”, Mufti had told the Assembly, and was based on the recommendations of a committee set up to look into the matter.
Two months after assuming power in 2016, Mufti had withdrawn 104 cases, filed between 2008 and 2014, against 634 local youths. However, the process stalled because of continued unrest in the state after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed. In November 2017, Mufti asked the authorities to withdraw 4,327 cases filed between 2008 and 2014.
