Srinagar: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday said Lt Governor Manoj Sinha should apologise to the families of the persons killed in the Hyderpora shootout as well as to the entire population of the Valley and called for stringent punishment to those involved in the incident.
Joined by party leaders and workers besides her daughter Iltija Mufti amid slogans urging the LG to apologize to the victim families, Mehbooba Mufti led a protest march from her ‘Fairview’ residence at Gupkar Road to the Raj Bhavan here, also demanded that the body of the third person — Amir Margay from the Ramban area — killed in the shootout be returned to the family.
The protesters had also carried placards in their hands which read “Order judicial inquiry into Hyderpora killings; Give justice to the victim families; and, Stop innocent killings”.
Upon reaching the Raj-Bhawan, protesters were intercepted by the security personal and prevented them from entering the premises which led to the minor altercation between the two sides. However, the protesters later dispersed off peacefully.
Talking to the media on the occasion, Mufti said, “Innocent people were killed in Hyderpora encounter. As LG is the head of the unified command, he should apologise to the kin of the killed persons and take back the blot on them of being militants or hybrid militants or OGWs.
“They should return Amir’s body, give compensation and the unified command should seek an apology from the people of Kashmir,” she told the media.
The PDP president demanded a judicial probe into the incident to bring the facts to the fore.
“A judicial inquiry be conducted and stringent punishment be given to those involved in this (incident),” she said.
Mufti said there were “doubts” whether there really was a militant who the police claim was killed in the shootout.
“We have not seen the body or the face of the fourth person who is being labelled as a militant. We have doubts whether there really was a militant or whether they killed the three civilians unnecessarily,” she said.
She said there was a huge question mark on the whole incident.
“We have information, there is an allegation that they were made a human-shield because they had a suspicion that there was a militant. But there is a huge question mark on whether there was a militant or not,” Mufti said.
“No militant body was recovered from the encounter site, they had cordoned off the area on mere suspicion, they used Dr Mudasir, Amir Magray and Altaf Bhat as human-shield as per our information. Before that a youth was killed in a Sumo vehicle, whether any militant was present there or not is still a question,” she added.
The former chief minister alleged that the country was being run on the BJP-RSS agenda.
“There are no rights here. They trampled upon the Constitution by abrogating Article 370. The country or J&K is not being run according to the Constitution. It is being run as per the agenda of the BJP-RSS which is to crush the minorities. There is more oppression here as J&K is a Muslim-majority state,” she said.
“They have taken out the funeral of democracy here. They do not allow anyone to talk, to protest. All doors have been closed, so they should seek an apology for this oppression,” Mufti added.
She also lashed out at the administration for asking some media houses to vacate government accommodations allotted to them, saying this is a pressure tactic to pressurize journalists whose narrative is different from that of the ‘Godi media’.
“This is sheer harassment; they want to intimidate journalists whose narrative is different from that of the ‘Godi media’. They don’t want them to write truth, they want media to act like stooge, and therefore use pressure tactics to stop them from writing the truth,” she said.
