National Conference (NC) working president Omar Abdullah Wednesday stated Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti should accept responsibility for the killing of nearly a hundred civilians.
Abdullah rejected allegations of ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the NC instigated people for violence saying had National Conference played a fraction of the destructive and opportunistic role that PDP had played in 2010, the situation would have been unimaginable.
“Mehbooba Mufti is responsible for the present situation that has resulted in hundreds of young boys and girls losing complete or partial eyesight,” former Chief Minister said.
He said Mehbooba Mufti blamed former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad for the 2008 unrest and held him personally responsible for the 2010 agitation.
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“By her own standards and logic, she is primarily responsible for the current situation in the Valley and should accept responsibility rather than deflecting it”, Abdullah said.
Abdullah was addressing a convention of the party’s delegates from Srinagar district at his NC headquarters here.
The NC, Abdullah said, didn’t politicize the current unrest in Kashmir and did not seek the dismissal of the PDP-BJP Government despite a complete breakdown of the law and order and governance apparatus in the State.
“Unlike PDP, we didn’t politicize the heart-rending and extremely grave situation in the Valley. Unlike Mehbooba Mufti, I didn’t go and lock the Civil Secretariat at a time when the Valley was on fire,” he said.
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“When we went to Delhi, we didn’t go to Delhi to ask for the dismissal of this Government but we sought the initiation of a political process to find a lasting solution to the Kashmir Issue.”
“Nobody can point a finger towards National Conference for exploiting this situation and that is why our conscience is clean”, Omar said.
Former Chief Minister said his and his party’s initiatives were not a partisan or power-seeking maneuvers but genuine and constructive efforts to seek political engagement with various stakeholders in Kashmir and to highlight the pain and suffering that stands to discredit the dividends of relative peace over the past few years.
“Not once did we call for the dismissal of the State Government or lobbied for our own empowerment - even when people from within PDP were openly demanding that the PDP-BJP Government should resign,” he said.
“Had PDP not played a destructive, opportunistic and malicious role in 2010, it wouldn’t have found itself cornered between moralistic rhetoric, contradictions and U-turns today”, Abdullah said.
The NC Working president said the Chief Minister’s shocking refusal to take responsibility for what’s happening in the Valley stems from her own political hypocrisy and also the creed of opportunism that PDP has made its trademark since its inception.
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Omar compared Mehbooba with Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France prior to the French Revolution who when told that starving French peasants lacked any bread to eat, the queen is alleged to have said, “Let them eat cake!”
“We have had more than our fair share of Queen Marie Antoinette moments since Mehbooba Ji has taken over and her act of brazenly blaming the killed for getting killed has added salt to the gaping wounds of those families that lost their young ones in this turmoil”, Abdullah said.
“I clearly remember how Mehbooba Mufti delivered an impassioned and dramatic speech in front of the All Parties’ Delegation after the 2010 agitation and told the visiting delegates that children who had gone out to buy toffees and milk were shot at and killed. Today the same Mehbooba Mufti has turned that very speech and assertion around on its head and ridicules the families of the slain young children by sarcastically asking them if their killed children had gone out to buy toffees and milk and goes on to accuse them of being combatants who planned to attack police stations and security establishments.”
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“Nothing can be more ironic and shameful. Her melodrama suited her as an opposition leader but sadly today there is no talk of AFSPA revocation, release of political prisoners or the resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan. All those promises have been bartered for power”, Abdullah said.
As the Chief Minister met recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought Kashmir centric CBMs, Abdullah said, she should introspect and realize that she has become a tormentor of her own people before trying to enact charades of seeking CBMs from New Delhi.
“First release those young men and children who have been indiscriminately arrested under your direct orders before enacting these dramas of seeking CBMs from New Delhi”, Abdullah said.
