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| Haseeb Drabu, Muzaffar Baig identified as fathers of PDP’s self rule concept | | Mehbooba wants ‘independent state’, says Kashmir is dotted with ‘martyrs graveyards’ | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 26: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President and daughter of the former Home Minister of India Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Mehbooba Mufti, today identified Chairman of Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd, Haseeb Drabu, and her party’s legal luminary, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, as the architects of PDP’s “self rule concept” and asserted that nothing short of an “independent state” would neutralize the separatist sentiment in Jammu & Kashmir. She said that in the last sixty-two years, New Delhi had played fraud after fraud with this state of special status by way of holding the people on gun point as it had permitted Army to occupy hundreds of thousands of Kanals of land, misused Police as a political tool to crush voices of dissent even as the Valley was dotted with martyrs’ graveyards and was being turned by the establishment into a Guantanamo Bay---dreaded USA jail for Al-Qaeda detainees on an island.
In PDP’s key speech over Chief Minister’s grants for Home, Power, Planning and some other departments, Mehbooba Mufti lashed out on New Delhi and her ‘political stooges’ in Jammu and Kashmir for 50 minutes in Legislative Assembly today. She identified Chairman of Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd, Haseeb Drabu, who was replaced as Economic Advisor to the state by former bureaucrat Jaleel Ahmed Khan in Omar Abdullah’s coalition government earlier this year, and senior party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, as the architects of PDP’s self-rule concept. She asserted that creation of an “Azad Riasat” (independent state) alone could be the solution of the six-decade-long political problem as, according to her, there was “deep sense of alienation and separatism” among a whole generation in Kashmir and the valley was already dotted with “martyrs’ graveyards”.
Mehbooba sought to make it clear that an “Azad Riasat” would mean a state in which everybody would enjoy complete freedom of speech, movement and to choose rulers. She alleged that the Centre had always played frauds with the individuals as well as institutions in Jammu & Kashmir and it had perpetuated political uncertainty and alienation for decades that, according to her, had created a separatist mindset in entire generations. She lamented that New Delhi had snatched away the special constitutional status of this border state in league with its puppet rulers in J&K as it had imposed Central laws without authority and permitted her armed forces not only to intervene in all the state matters but also to occupy hundreds of thousands of Kanals of land in the state.
Mehbooba alleged that there was no sense of security among the people as Police had been misused by successive governments as a political tool but disempowered institutionally. She said it was because of this “brazen encroachment” that the Centre had imposed the “anti-democracy” Article 356 in J&K only to empower itself to impose President’s rule and dismiss the democratically elected governments”. According to her, security forces and Police had been humiliating, torturing and harassing the people with impunity.
While making her point that hundreds of detainees had been languishing in jails for political reasons, she claimed that thousands of the Kashmiri students and businessmen were being humiliated and harassed in different Indian states and many of the students had returned to home with a sense of fear and outrage. “People here will continue to yell Ham Kya Chahte Azadi (We Want Freedom) as long as they were not given the due of thousands of martyrdoms and freedom to visit everywhere”, she warned Omar Abdullah-led coalition government and claimed that human rights situation needed to be improved.
Targeting Omar Abdullah’s coalition government, Mehbooba alleged that the “draconian” Public Safety Act (PSA) had been imposed, of late, on a large number of people from a 15-year-old child to 80-year-old elderly politician Syed Ali Shah Geelani. “Separatism is a state of mind”, Mehbooba said and urged the state government to bring relief to every citizen. She said it was a reality that even today the people in Kashmir had been using fire-crackers on Pakistan’s Independence Day on August 14th while as Government was arranging a thick crowd of Policemen in mufti to clap on the Indian Independence Day at the Stadium in Srinagar every year.
According to her, it was sustained disempowerment of the Kashmiris and excessive empowerment of Police and security forces by the powers that be in New Delhi that an ordinary constable had removed Jammu & Kashmir’s Prime Minister (Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah) and put him in jail in 1953. She said that Kashmir was being turned into a garrison state for troops and “Guantanomo Bay” for the civilians as large number of people were being arrested and detained in jails on flimsy grounds.
Mehbooba said that the Indian armed forces had not only occupied hundreds of thousands of civilian and state land forcibly but were also enjoying extraordinary impunity under J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act. She reiterated her party’s distinctive demand of withdrawal of troops and revocation of AFSPA. She said it was high time that India established Consulates of the world embassies in Srinagar so as to issue visa to travel documents for international tourists. She said that International Airport in Srinagar without consular facility for visitors and immigrants had no meaning or purpose.
As Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the Treasury benches listened to Mehbooba without disruption and her party members provided the encore, PDP chief claimed that opening of all the blocked roads, joint currency, joint council of elected legislators from the Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, withdrawal of troops and revocation of AFSPA would all become a reality one day in the future. She asserted that none of it was a “separatist agenda”.
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