Mehbooba Mufti at a PDP workers’ convention in Bandipora on Wednesday. (Express photo by Shuaib Masoodi)Former J&K chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Wednesday said the BJP wanted to ban Jamaat-e-Islami and crack down on Hurriyat leaders when her party was in a coalition with the BJP in the state, but she didn’t let them do it.
“BJP wanted to crack down on Jamaat-e-Islami, a crackdown on moulvis. I didn’t let them do it. BJP wanted to carry out NIA raids on Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others. But I didn’t let them do it,” Mehbooba said while addressing a workers’ convention in north Kashmir’s Bandipora.
The authorities recently banned the Jamaat-e-Islami in J&K and launched a crackdown against its leadership and activists. The NIA is now investigating a case related to alleged terror funding in Kashmir, carrying out a series of raids on separatists, including the Mirwaiz, head of the moderate Hurriyat faction.
Mehbooba also said the NIA came to Kashmir in 2009 during the tenure of the NC-Congress government. “I forced BJP to have ceasefire in Kashmir for at least one month but militants didn’t respond positively and continued their activities…I wanted to have a dialogue with separatist leaders and even a parliamentary committee visited Kashmir in 2016 but they closed their doors. I got Dineshwar Sharma appointed as interlocutor who was given a cabinet rank to have a dialogue with the separatist leadership but they didn’t talk. I tried everything during my tenure,” she said.
She also said that Kashmir is used whenever elections take place in the country. “In the 2014 elections, during the Congress government (tenure in the Centre), Afzal Guru was hanged to show the country what they have done. Today… BJP has started raids, banned JeI, summoned Mirwaiz.”
