Srinagar 28 July, KNT: On the occasion of Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) 23rd foundation day, party President Mehbooba Mufti demanded amnesty to the Kashmiri youth jailed in different prisons of the country, stressing that the unresolved Kashmir conflict will continue to act as a major deterrent in south Asia’s permanent prosperity.
Addressing a massive gathering of party leaders, workers, activists, and supporters, Mehbooba said that Prime Minister Modi must assume leadership of SAARC if he intends to make the country a Vishwa Guru (World Leader) The road to becoming the Vishwa Guru, said Mehbooba, passes through Kashmir. But it is Kashmir that has become a stumbling block to realising full potential of SARC. The road to becoming the world leader neither passes through G7 nor G20 or QUAD but through SARC alone. “Your dream of becoming a world leader will never turn into reality unless you do not maintain cordial relations with your neighbours. If you cannot even emerge as a leader of your very own neighbors, how could you become a world leader? What will help instead is full activation of SAARC. India has to assume its role of a true leader of SAARC nations and involve the neighbouring countries in constructive dialogue to take them out from the menace of hunger, poverty and grief.
Asserting that despite of being the only Muslim majority state, in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir rejected Pakistan and accepted the idea of a secular India.
“But we had our own identity, our own flag our own constitution. Give us our confidence back. Unless you resolve the Kashmir issue, your dream of becoming a world leader will never turn into reality. Modi ji aap kitny Masjid tod kar mandir banayen ge koi ous ke liye aapko yad nahin karega. Aap hathoda haath mein lekar lohar mat baniye aur har cheez tod daleN. Agar ban na hai to sunar ban kar zewar banayen, aur iss mulk ko khoobsoorat banaiye (You will not be remembered for how many mosques you have bulldozed and how many Mandirs you have built. Don’t become a destroyer. Become a builder and make this country beautiful),” Mehbooba said in her address.
The PDP president said that her pitching for cordial relations with Pakistan ruffles the mood of many pseudo-nationals as it falls in domain of foreign policy. However, said Mehbooba, she has to raise the issue for the sake of people of Jammu and Kashmir for it is they who bear the brunt of the hostility and not any other frontier state of the country .
“It is not Jammu and Kashmir alone that has borders with Pakistan. There are other states of our country as well that have frontier areas like Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. But it is Jammu and Kashmir alone that bears the brunt of the decades-old hostility between the two countries. The border areas of our state are bombed and destroyed by mortar shelling- wreaking havoc, and claiming innocent lives. This place is managed through million strong army and abuse of human rights has become quite a norm. The fact is that Kashmir has been turned in a prison where no body can raise a voice against such rampant abuse of human rights and values. The fact is that Jammu and Kashmir will continue to remain a battleground until issues are amicably resolved with Pakistan ,”
On Amarnath Yatra
The PDP President in her address said that hosting Amarnath Yatra is Kashmir’s centuries-old tradition and that Kashmiris have been exhibiting the best example of communal harmony during the pilgrimage. However, in the recent past, the manner in which Yatra is being conducted is nonetheless a punishment for the people of Kashmir. “Frequent frisking, barricading the highways, suspending traffic for hours is causing people insurmountable predicaments. Patients die halfway to reaching hospitals. All such theatrics are enacted to manufacture misplaced euphoria among the Indian masses that Yatra has been conducted with such spiking numbers.”
She added that the transgression of humans in all other ecologically fragile zones of the world is banned. But here, the norms are ruthlessly undermined and scores of the pilgrims were killed when tents were erected at a place that was highly sensitive and fragile. This, she said was a result of this machoism prevalent in Kashmir at present.
Mehbooba said that innocent school children and small-time traders are coerced to purchase flags and hoist them atop school buildings and shops. She said such farce heroism has yielded no positive results in the past and it will not yield any positive outcome in the future. “If you really have this much burning desire of showcasing your nationalism, hoist the tri-color in the territory that China has recently occupied. Get it back from China and let us hoist our national flag there with pride. Otherwise, coercing school-going children is incongruous.”
The PDP President added Kashmir has been turned into a garrison wherein diktats are issued like the jail rules, and flaying them is met with the punishment of severe kind.
The PDP President said that the tall claims of the BJP about rehabilitating Kashmiri panidts are proving a farce and that the community is bearing the brunt of the pervasive indifferent attitude being adopted towards their rehabilitation. “If the Modi-led government can open the Kartarpur corridor why it is reluctant to open Sharda Peth for Kashmir pandits which is located in Kashmir administered by Pakistan? Why two yardsticks are being adopted?
The PDP President said that scores of youth from Kashmir have been detained in prisons located outside Jammu and Kashmir and that their families are too poor to even bear the costs of traveling to those states and meet their loved ones. “Please for a while understand their agonies. Adopt a humane approach. Give them general amnesty, free them all,” Mehbooba urged GOI. (KNT)
