‘This Friday stone pelting is no Islam. Slitting throats with Allah-o-Akbar is no Islam. Islam is the religion that came to us from Nund Rishi and Shah-e-Hamadan
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR: For the first time in her 20-year-long political career, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and President of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday confronted the Kashmiri separatists and militants while blaming them both for doing ‘disservice to the religion of Islam’ and sustaining anarchy and bloodshed in Kashmir.
In her reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks on the Governor’s address in Legislative Council, Ms Mufti made unprecedented scathing attacks on the forces opposing the PDP-BJP coalition’s plan of settling the Kashmiri Pandit migrants in transit camps to be set up at different places in the Valley. On Saturday, in her similar speech in Assembly, Mehbooba had dismissed the separatist and the mainstream opposition’s demand of settling the migrant Pandits in their old residential villages as “inhuman” and asserted that they would go back to their old neighbourhoods only after their fear would go out while putting up at the proposed transit camps for some time.
In her Assembly speech, Mehbooba had triggered a fresh political controversy while saying that she would not put the pigeons before a cat. From hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the National Conference leaders, a number of politicians had castigated her for using the simile of pigeon for the Pandits and alleged that she had called the Kashmiri Muslims as the cat.
“It’s unfair to derive such insinuations. When I say opposition is the watchdog of democracy, does it mean I call them as dogs? Why would I call their Kashmiri Muslim neighbours as a cat when the Pandits have no threat from them. Their Muslim neighbours are eager and enthusiastic to see them back home. They have absolutely no threat from them. My words have been obliterated and an impression has been created as if every Kashmiri Muslim is a militant. Did Kashmiri Muslim neighbours kill Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone?”, Mehbooba asserted.
“Pandits have no threat from Muslims. Their only fear and threat is from the militants who massacred them at Wandhama. Muslim neighbours didn’t kill them. For days together, their women did beat chests on the Pandits’ carnage”, Mehbooba, once a staunch advocate of separatists and militants, said for the first time unambiguously holding militants responsible for Kashmiri Pandits’ displacement and massacres.
Mehbooba went on to assail the separatists and the militants for doing “disservice to Islam” with pelting stones on every Friday and killing innocent civilians. “These people have given a bad name to the religion of Islam. Pelting stones and slitting throats with a knife is no Islam. Our Islam is the one which came to us from Shah-e-Hamadan (14th century Islamic preacher from Central Asia Ameer-e-Kabeer Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani) and Nundrishi (Shah-e-Hamadan’s contemporary and founder of the Rishi form of Islam Sheikhul Aalam Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani whose reverred mausoleum is in Chrar-e-Sharief, Kashmir). (Because of militants) All Muslims are being viewed as militants. Once in America they see their name as Hussain or a surname, they become suspects. Now Muslims are removing surnames”, Mehbooba added.
Hitting hard on the youths who throw stones and stage demonstrations on Friday on the call of Kashmiri separatists, Mehbooba said: “Once upon a time, Muslims used to wait with reverence for Friday and would enthusiastically participate in the congregational prayers. Now no respectful person dares to go to a mosque on Friday. He thinks 40 times before going to a mosque. He doesn’t know whether his clean outfits would be spoiled or a stone would hit his head and kill him. These people have turned Juma Mubarak into Pathar Mubarak”.
Mehbooba said that J&K being a Muslim-dominated State, the people here could tell the whole world what actually is the religion of Islam. “We can tell them this is no Islam to pick up a knife and slaughter the human beings while reciting Allah-o-Akbar”.
Had PDP not formed Govt with BJP, Jammu would have repeated 1947: Mehbooba
SRINAGAR: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Tuesday in Legislative Council that Jammu would have witnessed “1947-type communal riots” if Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would not have formed government in partnership with BJP.
“A situation identical to that of 1947 (communal riots) would have been created if we had ignored the mandate BJP got in Jammu and formed the government with Congress and other parties after the 2014 Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir”, Mehbooba Mufti said in reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks on Governor’s address in the Upper House. According to her it was a compulsion but also logical to form the government in alliance with BJP. She pointed out that Kashmir had given mandate of ruling to PDP and Jammu to BJP. “It would have been unrealistic and imprudent to categorically ignore the mandate BJP got in Jammu”, Mehbooba said.
“Muslims and Hindus are in equal proportion in Chenab valley and Poonch-Rajouri. In that case, Kashmir and Jammu regions would have pitted against each other. Muslims and Hindus would have engaged in a war and clashed with each other. So it was a compulsion but also in consonance with logic and reason to form the government with BJP”, Mehbooba said.
Mehbooba said that there was another reason why PDP formed the government with BJP. She said that for years, Congress had struggled to build bridges with Pakistan but it had completely failed. “BJP leader Modi called Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief to the oath ceremony in Delhi and recently attended marriage ceremony of Sharief’s granddaughter in Lahore”, Mehbooba asserted.
“My father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed changed the whole discourse of engagement with political rivals. He made India and Pakistan move forward to the extent that Gen Musharraf declared the UN resolutions on Kashmir obsolete. Only BJP could do it. But unfortunately, our successors abandoned it and they did not pursue it after 2005. Today, we are making a fresh start from zero”, Chief Minister said.
Mehbooba said that unlike Omar Abdullah’s induction as a Minister in Vajpayee’s NDA government in 1998, PDP had made a common minimum programme in the interest of people with Congress in 2002 and again the Agenda of Alliance with the BJP in 2015. She said that opening of roads between two parts of Jammu and Kashmir across the LoC besides the 2003 ceasefire were the achievements of her father.
“We are now trying to open Suchetgarh road. We want Suchetgarh to become a major tourist attraction. I have just asked BSF officers to start parade till Pakistan makes its mind for a Wagah-like daily evening parade”, she added.
