Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday said she was not surprised by the revelations made by ex-RAW chief A S Dulat in his latest book about National Conference president Farooq Abdullah “privately’ supporting the abrogation of Article 370.
“Dulat’s revelations are nothing new for me. This father-son duo (Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah) went to meet them (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) on August 3 (2019). Farooq Sahib did not even go to Parliament (on August 5, 2019). He stayed back. So there is nothing surprising for me,” Mufti said while addressing a PDP workers’ convention here.
Article 370 granting special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated by the Centre on August 5, 2019.
Mufti also claimed that in 2014, Omar Abdullah met Amit Shah for government formation in Jammu and Kashmir.
“He told Shah not to form a government with the PDP but to go with the National Conference and that too unconditionally,” she alleged.
Dulat’s book, titled “The Chief Minister and the Spy”, is slated to be released on April 18.
Mufti also claimed that one of the cornerstones of PDP’s alliance with the BJP from 2015 to 2018 was that Article 370 will not be touched.
“In those two years and 10 months, Article 370 remained untouched,” she said.
The PDP chief also spoke about the Waqf (Amendment) Act and “attacks” on mosques and shrines, saying graves were being dug up on the pretext that these were remnants of the Mughal empire.
“The signs of the Mughal empire are Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Qutub Minar and Fatehpur Sikri, which are flocked by millions of tourists every year.
“If you are looking for descendants of Mughals, they are not among us Muslims. They are somewhere around you… Because Mughals were kings and they did not marry into ordinary Muslim households but into princely states whose descendants are sitting around you,” Mufti said.
Stating that the prime minister talks about the upliftment of Pasmanda Muslims, Mufti said, “I want to ask Modiji, is breaking down a madrassa in Madhya Pradesh or a 100-year-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh upliftment of Muslims?”
She also said that Muslims in the country should fight against the Waqf amendments peacefully.
“I request my fellow Muslims in India to fight against it (Waqf law) peacefully… What happened in Murshidabad was not good,” she said.
Mufti also said that in Kashmir, “Waqf became the inheritance of one family (in a veiled reference to Abdullahs), but Mufti Sahab set an example by establishing colleges and religious schools on Waqf land.”
On the perception that Muslims are being targeted in India, Mufti said they should not be treated in the same way as the terrorists treated Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley.
She said India belongs to all faiths. “India is the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. You treat it as though it belonged to the Mughal Empire. This country united Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus. Don’t break this unity. We have carried this nation with our hands—don’t wound those very hands.”
Meanwhile, party’s MLA Pulwama Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra said that the elected government has made no difference in Jammu and Kashmir as every atrocity of the Governor’s rule like attachment of properties, termination of employees and raids, continue even today in Jammu and Kashmir.
The PDP MLA also slammed the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for not attending the last three days of the recently concluded Assembly session.
He said that PDP is being targeted for forging an alliance with BJP, “but the coalition was done with an aim to put an end to the atrocities, jails, attachment of properties and termination of employees.
“We forged an alliance openly, we didn’t make any deal on August 05. In 2002, we forged an alliance and opened cross-LoC routes for both sides of Kashmir. In 2014, we forged an alliance and brought an all-party delegation to the doors of Geelani Sahab,” Parra said.
Parra also added that today, nobody is daring to speak, but during PDP’s tenure 12000 stone-pelters were given amnesty, an interlocutor was appointed to mediate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was made to accept that Kashmir issue could be resolved through dialogue.
“But today, NC despite having 50 MLAs in its kitty has failed to do any such work,” Parra said.
“Unlike NC, we (PDP) didn’t make any undercover deals. They made a deal when Afzal Guru (convicted in Parliament attack case) was hanged. Omar Abdullah, as per Shinde, had told to hang Guru during ‘Chilla-e-Kalan’ (coldest period of Kashmir winters) when people wouldn’t be able to come out due to cold weather. The deal was made in Maqbool Bhat’s hanging too, in 1953, and at the time of Delhi agreement,” he alleged.
