 Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 20: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti has written to External Affairs minister S Jaishankar over the delay in issuing passports to her and daughter Iltija.
Mufti informed the minister that her passport issue has dragged on "needlessly" for the last three years.
According to Mufti, she and her mother Gulshan Nazir, also wife of former Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, had applied for passport renewal in March 2020.
“J&K CID gave an adverse report that issuing passports to my eighty year old mother and me would undermine national security. In J&K it has become the norm to arbitrarily reject passport applications of thousands including journalists, students and others by misusing national interest as a pretext,” Mufti said.
The PDP chief said they moved J&K High Court and after the case dragged on for three years, the court gave clear directions that the Regional Passport Office in Srinagar shouldn't ?operate as CID's mouthpiece by denying passports on vague grounds.?
“In my case, I was asked to approach the Passport Authority of India which I have done multiple times since 2021. Unfortunately, I have not received a positive response yet. The inordinate and deliberate delay in issuing my passport is a grave violation of my fundamental right,? she said, adding, ?If suspending my basic rights in a democracy like ours is done with such brazen impunity & contempt, one can't even imagine what an ordinary Kashmiri goes through.”
Mufti said her daughter Iltija applied for her passport renewal in June 2022 and her application too is in limbo.
“It seems that the Passport Office in Srinagar is yet again failing to discharge its duty,” she said.
“For the past three years, I have been waiting eagerly to take my mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca. As a daughter, I feel pained & anguished to be unable to fulfil such a simple wish because of petty politics. I write to you hoping that you will look into the matter urgently,” she said in the letter. |
