The PDP on Friday upped the ante against BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav for his remark that "everything is fair in love and war", saying the comment points towards "legitimising a crime".
Madhav had on Thursday complimented an army officer responsible for tying a man to a jeep's bonnet in Kashmir, saying "everything is fair in love and war" and the "harsh" decision saved lives of civilians and soldiers.
"The remark of Madhav look to be a move aimed at legitimising a heinous crime and it is internationally considered as violation of covenants of human rights," PDP Minister Syed Altaf Bukhari said on Friday.
Bukhari took strong exception to the "everything is fair in love and war" remark and said, "We fail to understand against whom he has declared war."
"Is it a war declared against Kashmiris who despite all odds cast their votes reaffirming their belief in democracy? Or it is a war declared to satiate the electoral interests of a particular political party in the country," he said.
The BJP's pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir had said the current Kashmir situation is "certainly troubling" but expressed confidence that the PDP-BJP government will handle it.
Asked about the controversial video showing a civilian tied to an army jeep, Madhav had said nobody wants this but justified the act saying if one person's human rights are violated in order to protect the human rights of many more, he will leave that judgement to the officer concerned.
"I will compliment him for the decision that he took. He saved the lives of the people in police station, officials and all, and also his own boys. He also did not allow any civilian casualty," he had said.
Had the army not done so, then the mob there would have lynched over 50 civilians and almost equal number of security personnel there, Madhav had claimed.
The other option before the army was to fire indiscriminately because the officer had about 10 soldiers with him, and this would have caused civilian casualties, he had said.
Bukhari said that Madhav seems to be justifying what is unjustifiable under law. He further said that legally speaking human shields is concerned to be illegal both in domestic troubles and international turmoil.
He also took a dig at the statement of BJP Minister Chander Prakash Ganga, who recently said "traitors and stone-pelters should be treated with bullets".
Bukhari said, "Even the army commanders do not give such statements. He has exposed his venomous and biased approach against Kashmiris."