Peoples Conference president and MLA Handwara Sajjad Gani Lone has accused PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti of “selective morality” saying she destroyed lives in power but now postures “as a defender of rights”. In 2016, when she was Chief Minister, separatist leader Sarjan Barkati was arrested with 64 FIRs filed against him. Later, she cited his name often in public meetings to gain sympathy and votes for her party candidates during electioneering.
Sarjan Barkati had gained notoriety after the killing of terrorist Burhan Wani in July 2016 for coinage of incendiary slogans meant to galvanise youth to spread anarchy. “This is a mockery of all those in prison. If you cannot truly help them, at least do not make fun of their suffering,” Sajjad Lone said.
“You cannot be on both sides,” he said, vowing to continue reminding Kashmiris of the past “misdeeds of those now seeking moral high ground’’. It can be mentioned here that Sajjad remained a Cabinet minister in PDP-BJP government and was privy to most decisions taken during that period. Lone accused PDP chief Mehbooba of “hypocrisy and political theatrics” over her letter to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking clemency for JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik.
Incidentally, Mehbooba Mufti had a reputation of being enfant terrible of Kashmir’s politics, doing things very differently from others, in a rather unconventional way. This helped her party, PDP, gain prominence after 1999 as it adopted “Inkpot and Pen’’ symbol of defunct Muslim United Front (MUF). Her brand of politics, centred partly on soft separatism and arguing for Pakistan giving it too much of leeway was her undoing also. In 2018, her turn of speech, which top BJP leaders and RSS found rather incendiary, burnt her bridges with the party.
Decades earlier, NC founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah sought to sway ordinary Kashmiris by recitations from the holy Quran in his public speeches. After the founding of PDP in 1999, Mehbooba Mufti used green coloured phirans as her distinguishing mark to subtly remind those she addressed regarding its overt associations with her religion.
Lone said on Friday he wanted to expose the “double standards” of Muftis, one of Kashmir’s traditional political families. He questioned the basis of Mehbooba’s letter, pointing out that Malik himself had never filed an appeal and had instead “narrated his story with courage’’. He pointed out to Mufti that even if Malik were released in one case she referred to, there were several other cases pending against him, including one in which a member of her own family (her younger sister Rubaiya Sayeed) had identified Malik.
“At that time, they trapped him (Yasin Malik) and today they shed tears for him. How long will this hypocrisy continue? When in power they send people to jails and gallows and when out of power they turn into mourners?” Lone said.
“Both Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Farooq Abdullah feared the emergence of new players. To secure their own crowns, they started slapping false cases. This very case, in which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) now seeks the death penalty, was born out of that insecurity,” Lone said.
“Farooq Abdullah himself in 2019 publicly said he and Yasin Malik were on the same path. At that time, it was all about winning elections. And now, the punishment being demanded is in a case registered during his tenure.”
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