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| Even after months of PDP-NPP tie-up, Harsh is softly yours Ms Mufti | | Heated exchange between Sagar, Mehbooba, Speaker over AFSPA | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 20: After days of a ceasefire with the ruling National Conference (NC) in Legislative Assembly, Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President, Mehbooba Mufti, today clashed not only with Minister of Law & Parliamentary Affairs, Ali Mohammad Sagar, but also with Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone, who directed yet another notice of the ‘contempt of House’ against her but withdrew it later on the persuasion of the National Panthers Party (NPP) leader Harsh Dev Singh. Holding each other responsible for it, PDP and NC members entered into heated exchanges over imposition of Jammu & Kashmir Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) on the disturbed border state.
Concluding his exhaustive reply to the discussion on the grants sought for his departments, Ali Mohammad Sagar dismissed PDP’s campaign for withdrawal of AFSPA as “deceitful politics” and claimed that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s party had never taken an initiative during six-year-long PDP-Congress coalition regime in 2002-08 for revoking the special powers granted to security forces in 1990. Even as Mehbooba Mufti confronted Sagar and blamed the NC Government for pioneering the imposition of Public Safety Act (PSA), Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) as well as AFSPA in J&K, Sagar asserted that “misleading the people and Assembly with lies” was characteristic of the PDP.
Sagar fiercely retaliated to Ms Mufti’s charge that Omar Abdullah-led coalition government had slapped the PSA on many people from a 14-year-old boy to 80-year-old separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and claimed that his government had used minimum possible force to restore peace in Kashmir valley in the last eight months. “You will have to accept Mehboobaji that it was none other than your father who got Jagmohan as Governor in 1990 and imposed AFSPA on Jammu & Kashmir”, Sagar shouted on the PDP chief. “When your father was Home Minister of India, he made it a point of his ego to bring Jagmohan as Governor, issued an Ordinance and got the legislation done in Parliament within six months”, Sagar referred to the embryonic days of Kashmir insurgency in 1990.
“Total number of militants in 1989 was just 72. Dr (Farooq Abdullah) Sahab got them all arrested and later set them free for rehabilitation. Today, most of the leaders in this country are referring to militants as our children. On using the same phrase, a country-wide campaign of hatred was triggered off against Dr Sahab. He refused to yield on Jagmohan’s appointment and resigned in protest alongwith 29 Ministers and MLAs. We sacrificed our Government for the people of this state. Even an orderly remains stuck to his chair”, Sagar grumbled on Ms Mufti and reminded her that it was her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and his protégé, Jagmohan, who had given special powers to armed forces in J&K in 1990.
“Did you take a single initiative for withdrawing AFSPA during the six years of your Government? Listen, Ms Mufti. I have checked all records and found that you people have never submitted a suggestion of revoking Armed Forces Special Powers Act to the Centre in the last six years of your Government. There has been not a single meeting on this subject for six years”, Sagar shouted on Mehbooba and her colleagues on the Opposition benches and claimed that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had made sincere efforts from day one of his government for withdrawing the special powers enjoyed by the armed forces in the state notified as “disturbed area” nearly 19 years back.
“We don’t believe in politics of deceit and double standards”, he said and claimed that even the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 had been signed with Pakistan when Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was a leader in Congress party and the NC founder, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, was in jail. He said he was indebted to Mufti Sayeed who had publicly confirmed this reality and asked Ms Mufti to be correct on the facts.
As leader of the 21 MLA-strong PDP, Ms Mufti, kept on her protestation and Speaker continued asking her not to disrupt the Minister’s reply, she led a walk-out of nearly a dozen of her MLAs while casting the aspersion of being prejudiced and partisan against Mr Lone. It enraged the Speaker who warned her against her assertions and contended that it was a “contempt to the House”. He directed Secretary Assembly, Mohammad Ramzan, to issue a notice of “contempt to the House” against Ms Mufti.
Thereafter, Speaker ordered initiation of discussion on the grants sought by Minister of Forest, Mian Altaf Ahmed. NC’s MLA from Handwara, Choudhry Mohammad Ramzan, who has functioned as Minister of Forest twice in the last 21 years, made an impressive speech on the state of Forest and Forest-related departments and services in J&K.
Later, beginning his speech on the Forest grants, NPP MLA and former Minister, Harsh Dev Singh beseeched Speaker Lone to withdraw his order against Ms Mufti and permit her party’s MLAs to speak on the cut motions moved by them in the last few days. By then, all of PDP’s MLAs, excluding Ms Mufti, had returned to the House and taken their seats. After making it clear that he would not tolerate any negative insinuation towards his integrity and impartiality in future, Speaker obliged the NPP leader and asked PDP’s MLA from Bijbehara, Abdul Rehman Veeri, to speak on the cut motions.
Earlier in the day, senior PDP leader and former Minister incharge Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, made an eloquent speech to suggest that there was no legality in imposition of AFSPA in J&K.
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