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| Delaying AFSPA revocation could stir up public outrage: Mufti | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Anantnag, Apr 23-Asserting that rationalization of armed forces strength and revocation of their special powers in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be delayed any more, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said any dilly dallying on this subject of crucial importance could spark off a people’s movement and PDP would be a part of that justified endeavor.
Addressing public meetings at Dooru and Khannabal in Anantnag parliamentary constituency today, Mufti said that the Working Group set up under the chairmanship of Hamid Ansari, too had categorically recommended scrapping of AFSPA. “People of the State would rise against the continued denial of justice if these recommendations are not implemented at the earliest”, he cautioned and said it was time that the union government took up the matter seriously.
Mufti said as part of the previous coalition Government in the State, PDP had vigorously raised the issue at all forums and had demanded scrapping of the draconian laws that provide impunity against the acts of human rights violations committed by some members of uniformed forces. Though the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had promised action and some measures were in fact taken but the real issues brought up by the party remain unresolved, he observed.
The PDP, Mufti said wants the armed forces, deployed on internal security duties, to go back to barracks as the situation in the State now demanded a full revival of civil institutions. He said unless that was not done democracy will acquire neither its full form nor its real meaning in the State. He said while it was true that we need a security apparatus, but civilian government and civil society have to be able to breathe and act freely. It is important that the presence of security forces is commensurate with the comfort level of the civilian population and instruments of civil set up, he added.
Mufti said equally important was the issue of the sell-out of the State’s water resources which his party would vehemently agitate using all democratic means. He said it was disastrous for the State’s economy that as many as seven power projects were gifted to the National Hydro Electric Corporation (NHPC) by the then National Conference Government in 2000 without any thing in return.
On the one hand, Mufti said, NC presented the State as a begging bowl which could not survive without central doles, and on the other it was responsible for ruining its economy just to stay in power. He said it was an unfortunate part of the Kashmir history that the NC had always treated the State and its resources as its personal property, a mindset that led its president and the then Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah to sign away our entire economic potential to the centre just because he was pleasing his friend - the then Union Power Minister late R Kumaramangalm. “Even Maharajas and Nawabs would think twice before sacrificing the interests of their State such unabashedly”, he said.
PDP leaders Sayeed Farooq Indrabi, Bashir Assad and Advocate Javed also addressed the meetings.
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