Srinagar, June 15, President Sajad Gani Lone Wednesday said that the woes of the common masses on the ground are mounting with each passing day and that the administration needs to go beyond the rhetoric and make sincere efforts to engage the people of J&K for a lasting solution to the present challenges.
‘’The situation is tense and there is palpable fear. There is a feeling of violence being pervasive. We have seen these phases in the past as well however, there is a certain aloofness with which the current administration is being identified. Their utterances are overtly muscular. They may unintentionally be weakening the resolve of the general masses by virtue of an administrative discourse that seems to be anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri. The rulers and the ruled would have to live on the same planet for a cohesive response to the challenges faced by the people of J&K, he added.
Sajad maintained that the worst thing that the administration can do is to go on pretending that everything is hunky-dory since August 5, 2019.
‘’The biggest problem they are facing today is that it is a people-less fight. The administration needs to get off the high horse and talk to people who have been around for decades. The people of Kashmir who have fought and sacrificed their lives in the last 3 decades are nowhere. There is this belief that in order to be an expert on Kashmir, you have to be a non-Kashmiri. It has to change. In order to counter violence government must involve local stakeholders, who have been at the forefront of this fight in the last 3 decades’’, he added.
While responding to a question on BJP spokespeople’s remarks on the Prophet (PBUH) and Islam, Sajad said that the remarks made by BJP spokespeople are absolutely shameful and reprehensible.
‘’It is unfortunate that the BJP is sensitive to the criticism by the Arab countries while completely ignoring the sentiments of the Muslims living in India. It is matter of shame that the BJP apologized only when there was a diplomatic backlash from Muslim countries. Ideally in a democracy, the government should have voluntarily taken action against its spokespeople for hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslim citizens of this country. But it seems that the sensitivities of the Muslims of this country do not matter to the BJP.’’
On being asked about the ban of Falah-e-Aam affiliated schools Sajad said that the ban is discriminatory.
‘’Selectively cracking down on institutions that have religious affiliations is grossly unfair and unjust. The administration must understand that J&K is an overwhelmingly Muslim majority state. They cannot possibly ban every institution because they have a bias against Muslims. It seems that they are intentionally targeting the Kashmiris for petty electoral gains in the rest of the country’’, he added.
Sajad Lone was speaking on the occasion of joining function in which over three dozen National Conference workers from Kupwara joined his Peoples Conference party. (KNT)
