Srinagar | Nov 30: National Conference Working President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah today asked Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti to accept responsibility for the killing of nearly a hundred civilians and said she was majorly responsible for the present situation that has resulted in hundreds of young boys and girls losing complete or partial eyesight. “The same Mehbooba Mufti blamed Ghulam Nabi Azad for the 2008 unrest and held me personally responsible for the 2010 agitation. 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”, Omar Abdullah said while addressing a convention of the party’s delegates from Srinagar District at National Conference Headquarters in Srinagar.
In a statement issued to PTK, the NC Working President said National Conference 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. 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. Had National Conference played a fraction of the destructive and opportunistic role that PDP had played in 2010, the situation would have been unimaginable. Nobody can point a finger towards National Conference for exploiting this situation and that is why our conscience is clean”, Omar said while addressing party leaders, office bearers and delegates from Srinagar District.
“Our initiatives were not partisan or power-seeking manoeuvres 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. 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”, Omar added.
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. “The party of ‘healing touch’ has become the party of ‘blinding touch’ today as hundreds of young children have been robbed of their eyesight while Mehbooba Mufti insensitively regales about her obsession with gol-gappas on every single platform and ocassion. We have had more than our fair share of Queen Marie Antoinette moments since Mehbooba 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”, the NC Working President further said while addressing the Delegates Convention for Srinagar.
“I clearly remember how the same Mehbooba Mufti delivered an impassioned and dramatic speech in front of the Central 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. 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”, Omar Abdullah added.
The National Conference Working President said the Chief Minister 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. “We still remember how you asked for CBMs as a pre-condition to government formation after the demise of Late Mufti sayeed. What happened to that CBMs Mehbooba Ji? If you didn’t get anything then and that still didn’t stop you from sitting on the CM’s chair, why fool the people again? Had PDP been honest in seeking reprieve and confidence building measures from New Delhi, it wouldn’t have indiscriminately put thousands of youth in jails all across the State. A lot of these arrests have been indiscriminate and based on fictitious and unsubstantiated accusations. 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”, the NC Working President further said.
Omar Abdullah asked the party’s workers to leave no stone unturned to reach out to the people and play a positive and constructive role in the current situation. “Since PDP and BJP have united their efforts in their common resolve to divide, fragment and destroy this State – the duty falls on the shoulders of the brave workers of National Conference to protect this State’s legacy, political honour and ethos of secularism and brotherhood”, Mr. Omar Abdullah added.
Senior NC Leaders including NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar, NC Additional General Secretary Dr. Sheikh Mustafa Kamal, Former Speaker Mubarak Gul, Provincial President Nasir Aslam Wani, Shameema Firdous and District President Srinagar Peer Mohammad Afaq also addressed the delegate’s convention. Those present on the occasion included party leaders Ali Mohammad Dar Central Zone President, Irfan Ahmed Shah, State Spokesperson Junaid Mattu, Provincial Secretary Advocate Showkat Ahmed Mir, Provincial President Youth National Conference Salman Ali Sagar, Provincial Spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar, Senior Vice President Youth Yunis Mubarak Gul, Block Presidents from Srinagar and office bearers of the Party’s women’s and youth wings. (PTK)