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| Not by house arrest policy | | | "Do not venture out."This is a brief message from Chief Minister,Omar Abdullah,to his political rival,Mehbooba Mufti,leader of the opposition in the state Assembly and President of the PDP.The message was out soon after Mehbooba was whisked away on Monday by the police when she was planning to visit Sopore to offer condolences to the family of a youth allegedly killed in police custody.Mehbooba was taken in a police van to her residence where she was placed under house arrest.Omar's message or to be precise his warning resembled a direction from a husband to his wife but in this case the resemblance can be far fetched.Omar's message can resemble a direction or an order from the Army commander to the sentry at his residence.It can be a suggestion from a father to his daughter but Omar seems to be younger than Mehbooba thereby does not have any right to give a parental advice.Omar's four word warning is like that of a teacher to an indisciplined student.Here Omar is neither a teacher nor Mehbooba is a student.
What then can be treated Omar's warning to Mehbooba? It reflects signs of intolerance on the part of Omar Abdullah who has been led to believe that political leaders like Mehbooba,Geelani, Molvi Umar,Yasin Malik and others have a potential of inciting people to violence.If Omar is having such a notion he has no reason to claim that he and the National Conference represent people of Kashmir,if not the state.Even under house arrest Geelani's call for shutdown in protest against the custodial killing in Sopore was responded by people in Baramullah,Bandipore,Sopore and Anantnag.This indicates that even if the leaders of the stature of Mehbooba and Geelani are placed under house arrest they have the innate strength to see their writ runs in Kashmir.If it is so why should then Omar listen to a few police officers,a couple of bureaucrats and those who follow him like a shadow,who have been suggesting to him to order a major crackdown on the opposition leaders.
Peaceful summer coupled with heavy rush of tourists and Amarnath pilgrims during the current season seem to have led Omar to believe that he is law unto himself.With the appreciation tag from the Congress led UPA Government he does not hesitate dishing out inst ructions of the type"do not venture out"to politicians who believe in democracy or who are not prepared to snap their links with people.It is a democratic practice,rather tradition in Indian democratic structure,in which the opposition tries to cash on the ommissions and the commissions of the ruling coalition.If Mehbooba had any such plan Omar should have defeated her designs through arguments and by quick action against those responsible for the custodial killing.Omar has the powers,vested in him by Rahul Gandhi,to gag the press and muzzle the freedom of speech and movement of the opposition leaders.But he should remember it that those who believed in "democratic dictatorship"lost peoples'support even if they had firm political roots in the country and were more powerful than Omar.He needs to be reminded of the fate of Indira Gandhi in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections when hardly six years' earlier she had been christened as goddess Durga for her role in the creation of Bangladesh.Omar should not allow himself to be held a prisoner in the hands of a few police officials and bureaucrats as he should remember the fate of late G.M.Sadiq who having been given a wrong picture of the situation avoided moving around the state for interaction with the people. |
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