BLUNT BUTCHER
JAMMU: Third time consecutively, the Chief Minister has taken a jibe on separatists, saying while poor youngsters are being made fodder of their cannons by handing over them stones, their own kin remain aloof, pursuing academics across the country and even abroad or enjoying peaceful environs away from Kashmir in pursuit of green pastures. No exaggeration in the assertion but why this reality dawns on politicians only when they are glued to power.
Blaming ‘vested interests’ for violence unleashed by stone pelters in the Valley, Mehbooba Mufti has virtually justified the action of security forces in tackling them, saying that when teens visit army camps, they don’t go for candies but with the intent of attack. However, in the same breath she almost justifies 2010 stone-pelting movement, saying circumstances were different then-‘fake Machil encounter and alleged rape and killing of two Shopian women’. How come the present action against stone-pelters is right and wrong when the political adversary was occupying the hot-seat of power?
Same has been the refrain of Working President National Conference Omar Abdullah, who is raising hue and cry over use of excessive force and pellet guns, forgetting that this ‘lethal’ weapon was introduced in Kashmir during his tenure as Chief Minister. He is on record having stated in 2010 that the stone pelters were being paid money for carrying on Sangbaz agitation. Today, he is proclaiming current lot of stone pelters as innocent youngsters who want more than what is been termed as development. That time over 100 youngesters were killed and currently the toll has risen to 68. Ironically, both Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, in their official capacities, have been blaming adversaries and separatists for unleashing stone-pelting violence but, at the same time, they have been providing concessions to the anti-national lot.
Remember, how Omar Abdullah announced amnesty for the stone pelters and brought them under a rehabilitation package as well, as a result of which many chronic stone pelters got recruited in the police. He had put a rider that the pelters, upto a particular period can avail of this amnesty. However, the incumbent Chief Minister ignored this rider and withdrew cases against over 400 stone pelters, just days ahead of the current spell of Sangbaz agitation. This ‘blame and concession’ syndrome has remained confined to Mehbooba Mufti or Omar Abdullah. Successive Chief Ministers from all hues have been pursuing this policy. When in chair, they tend to be ultra-nationalists and when outside the power, they find solace in the company of separatists. But one thing is common with all these political executives that separatists have been the lot who keep romanticising stone-pelting by involving and indoctrinating or luring poor boys into their lucrative avocation to justify Pak funding. But does it really matter, as long as the so-called mainstream leaders wear separatist jargon after losing the loaves of power. They taken no time in changing colour, even as chameleon too takes time to change its colour.
