If New Delhi can start dialogue on Northeast, why not on J&K: Mehbooba

Bijbehara, Jan 7: Hundreds of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters Sunday streamed into Dara Shikow Garden, the final resting place of PDP founder and former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed to mark his eighth death anniversary.

A macadamised road branching off from Srinagar-Anantnag road in Bijbehara leads to the garden with lofty Chinar trees dotting the area.

Since morning, the party supporters began gathering in the park to pay homage to their leader. A large LCD erected a few meters from Sayeed’s mausoleum featured a short documentary film about Sayeed's political journey.

At around 12:30 pm, former chief minister and PDP President Mehbooba Mufti accompanied by senior party leaders showed up in the park and paid rich tributes to the party founder.

Addressing the party workers, Mehbooba urged them not to lose hope and fight against all challenges.

“We should not give up hope as every dawn follows the darkest night,” She said.

Mehbooba said that Sayeed during his rule released the youth from jails and facilitated dialogue.

“I also tried to follow in his footsteps. I withdrew FIRs of 12,000 youth and offered dialogue,” she said.

Mehbooba said that while the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government thought that it would resolve the Kashmir issue using strong-arm tactics, separatists believed that they would achieve their goal through stone pelting.

“But the issue was not resolved. Instead, it exacerbated things further,” she said.

Mehbooba said that the PDP did not want peace of the graveyard but peace with dignity.

She said that she wanted to ask New Delhi when it engaged in talks on Northeast why it could not talk to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

“In J&K, you have billed ordinary people as terrorists. You have filled jails with youth and continued with ED and NIA raids,” she said, asking who treated its people like this.

Mehbooba said that the government should learn from Mufti Muhammad Sayeed who even brought the separatists into the mainstream so that they could lead a dignified life with the rest of the country.

“Mufti Sahab always held one flag, but he said that the people of Kashmir want dignified peace and they won’t surrender for it,” she said.

Mehbooba said that after the abrogation of Article 370, the problems of the common masses had compounded further.

“There is unemployment and there are job scams,” she said.

Mehbooba said that the people of J&K were suffering due to power shortage and the electricity produced by the regions was supplied to outstation states like Rajasthan and Haryana.

She said that the PDP had to become the voice of the people, urging both India and Pakistan to come together to make J&K an abode of peace.

Thanking her party workers, the PDP president urged them to help the party in the upcoming Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

Prominent among others present on the occasion included Muzaffar Hussain Baig and his wife Safeena Baig, who rejoined the PDP, former PDP ministers Abdul Rehman Veeri, Nayeem Akhtar, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjoora, Asiya Naqash, Tasaduq Mufti, and Sartaj Madni, former Member of Parliament Mehboob Beg, youth leader Waheed-ur-Rehaman Parra, and Raja Waheed.