KNZ NEWS DESK
Srinagar: Jammu & Kashmir Tourism Minister Tassaduq Mufti has said that PDP and BJP have “ended up being partners in a crime (for which) an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay with their blood”.
In an interview to The Indian Express, Tassaduq Mufti made it clear that this is not his personal view but the overwhelming sentiment within the PDP.
Tassaduq is also son of the late PDP patron and former CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and brother of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
“Today the threat is that while we are in control, we are no longer trusted,” he said. “We were supposed to be partners in rebuilding of this place but, sad to admit this, due to the non-fulfilling of commitments, we have ended up being partners in a crime that an entire generation of Kashmiris might have to pay with their blood”.
He urged New Delhi to “give up its obduracy and recognise the problem at hand, de-escalate tension, resume the political process” and implement the commitments made in the agenda of alliance.
Failing which, he said, the PDP has to “take one last bow and apologise to people for having unknowingly pushed them into something they did not deserve”. Mufti’s remarks come when there has been a yet another surge in violence in the Valley, with 18 civilians killed in government force’s firing, hundreds injured, 47 militants, 26 among them local and 20 forces personnel killed in encounters this year; a spike in the firing along the LoC and infiltration.
Also, the horrific rape of a child in Kathua and the manner in which a section of the local BJP has railed against the police in support of the accused has also touched off many nerves in the PDP.
“The brutal murder-rape of a tribal child and the subsequent communal politics over it has pushed the state to a new low and brought shame to all of us…If coalition politics is about living with a series of failures and ignominies, then I am sorry I don’t know how to hide my awkwardness and discomfort with it,” he said.
