Srinagar: A day after the government issued a country-specific passport, valid for two years to Iltija Mufti, she said she will continue to fight for her right to travel abroad in the court having full faith in the judicial system of the country.
“Am I a terrorist or an anti-national?” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija asked on Friday while addressing media persons.
The 35-year-old had moved to the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in February after her application for a passport was not cleared following an adverse report by the J&K Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Her passport had expired on January 02 and she had applied for a fresh one on June 08 last year.
The court directed the Regional Passport Office (RPO) to look into the merits of the case. Following this, Iltija, who wants to go for higher studies, has been issued a passport that is valid from April 05, 2023 to April 04, 2025, according to a letter by the RPO to the Additional Solicitor General.
“The Regional Passport Officer, Kashmir, Davinder Kumar, and the CID have misled the judiciary,” Iltija told a press conference at the PDP headquarters here.
“The passport issued to me is a two-year passport and it is mentioned clearly that it is valid only for the UAE,” Iltija said and described the document issued to her as a “conditional passport”.
She said she was an “Indian law abiding citizen” and has not broken any law. “But, even to issue the two-year passport, the Official Secrets Act has been invoked against me. This Act is usually invoked for espionage,” Iltija claimed.
“Am I a fugitive? Am I Nirav Modi, am I a terrorist, anti-national that I am being punished? If I talk about the central government, is it like talking against the country? What is my fault?” she asked.
“I am not a fugitive or a conman like Kiran Patel who was treated as a VVIP,” Iltija said. Patel was arrested in Kashmir last month for allegedly posing as an official of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The PDP chief’s daughter alleged that she was being treated like a hardened criminal and “like I have taken thousands of crore of rupees as loans from banks and have become a defaulter”.
She asserted that she would continue to fight her case in the court despite “pressure to withdraw her petition” as she has full faith in the judiciary.
“The Deputy Solicitor General (of India) (Tahir Majid) Shamsi has asked the court to dismiss my petition as a passport has been issued to me. But, what passport is this?” Iltija asked.
She claimed that the CID told the court that it was not stopping her passport and “not violating any of my fundamental rights”.
“The right to travel abroad is a fundamental right and I am being deprived of that right,” Iltija said.
“This is happening to me because I am the daughter of a former chief minister. What would be the fate of common people,” she said.
Iltija asked if there was any FIR registered against her or if there were any charges against her that she was being “deprived of this right”.
“What is my fault? If this is happening to me, you can imagine what is happening to common Kashmiris,” she said.
Accusing the CID of “playing a very bad role and criminalising basic things such as passport issuance” in Kashmir at the “behest” of the Centre, Iltija said Kashmir is on “auto-pilot mode, silent mode” after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 as people “do not have the freedom to raise their voice and they are jailed if they say something”.
“Legally, you have to let me know, you are answerable to me as to why a conditional passport was issued to me. Am I involved in some Hawala scam, or money laundering?” Iltija said.
She also asked “why has the CID submitted an adverse report in a sealed cover?”
“If you are so confident about your report, then why did you have to invoke the Official Secrets Act? Why do you not want the document to come out in the public domain?” Iltija asked.
“Because there is nothing substantial in that, there are no solid grounds (against me). So, you are misleading the court. So, I request the court to see that it is being misled…,”she said.
Iltija said the government wants to make an example out of her family “so as to stop people from raising their voice”.
She said she believes that some officers of the CID were bringing “disgrace and disrepute” to the department. “They are lying to the court, harassing the people like the Nazi Germany. The CID here has only one job — that is to harass and persecute the Kashmiris,” Iltija alleged.
Asked if she would continue to pursue the matter in the court, Iltija alleged that there is pressure on her lawyer to “withdraw the petition”.
“But, I will not withdraw my petition because this is not my fight only but of others who have been deprived of such rights. There is tremendous pressure on us to withdraw this petition, but I will continue to fight it in the court and I have full faith in the honourable judiciary that they will issue this passport,” she said.
Without naming her, police refute Iltija’s charges
Refuting the allegations leveled by Iltija that her lawyer is being pressured to withdraw the case from the court, police on Friday said that “denigrating the community’s own institutions for grievances that are personal on the basis of false accusations is self-harm.”
Without naming Iltija, police in a detailed press release said that it has come across several items in the media suggesting that its intelligence and counter-intelligence wing is pressurizing litigants to withdraw from the process of redressing their grievances through courts of law.
“Ordinarily, law-enforcement agencies do not rush to the public to discuss its work processes and procedures, especially those that are legally ordained to be discreet in public interest,” police said.
Describing Iltija’s assertions (Without naming her) as “outrightly false”, it said “on learning that accusations have been made that CID of J&K Police has pressurized a litigant to refrain from litigating in the High Court in connection with her passport related grievances, a quick internal audit was carried out.
“J&K Police can affirm that the claim of such pressure is completely false,” it said, adding “nevertheless, officers are being detailed to approach the aggrieved person and ascertain details – who pressurized, when, where and under what circumstances so that the quick internal inquiry if found inadequate can be expanded to take suitable disciplinary action against the delinquent.”
Police also said that “unfortunately, the public person (Iltija) has apparently projected her personal grievance as also to be the grievance of the public in general in Kashmir.
“This is very problematic. J&K Police and its affiliates are public institutions and designed to serve public interest. Denigrating the community’s own institutions for grievances that are personal on the basis of false accusations is self harm,” police said.
It also informed that in the year 2020, out of 77,686 passport verifications received, 77,644 (99.95%) were cleared. Similarly in 2021, out of 75,714 passport verifications received, 75,176 (99.68%) were cleared, while as in 2022, out of 1,34,315 passport verifications received, 1,28,939 (99.61%) were cleared.
Police also said that security verifications preceding the issuance of passports is a high value public service.
It said that J&K Police has detected as many as 54 young boys who were “wrongly given passport service during 2017-18; unfortunately, all of them went to Pakistan, were taken to terrorist camps, trained in arms, ammunition and explosives, many of them pushed back into J&K through LoC and 26 of them died while either crossing or during encounters in the hinterland.
“Lives of 12 of these young boys could be saved by the CID after their return from Pakistan by bringing them under preventive custody so that terrorist-separatist syndicates do not succeed in pressuring them to join terror ranks. Eventually all of the 12 have been handed over to their families. Today they are alive and happily live amidst their mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers and friends.
“Unfortunately, 16 of them are still across and trapped in camps under control of hostile agencies. It is heartbreaking to know that in some cases even parents had no idea that passport services have been extended to these boys of tender age.
“Intelligence and investigation has confirmed that in each and every case the visa to Pakistan was arranged at the behest of one or the other leader of a constituent party of Hurriyat,” police press release said.
It said CID is committed to help the parents of vulnerable young persons in not falling prey to the death traps.
“J&K Police is committed to speedy and hassle-free clearances for more than 99 percent who are ‘clean and green’ and a professional filtering of those who should be prevented from availing the service – some in their own interest and others in the interest of the public,” the press release said.
