National Conference Saturday said that now that the PDP has openly started aligning itself with the Modi led NDA and has even gone to the extent of officially saying that they are open to forge an alliance with any party, it’s important to place on record that the main initiatives of peace, reconciliation and reconstruction in J&K have always been taken or facilitated singularly by the National Conference with support sought from successive Governments in New Delhi.
In a statement issued by NC spokesperson Junaid Mattu, the party has said that it was the National Conference that courageously initiated the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation as early as in 1996. While National Conference worked hard and succeeded in effecting a historic ceasefire and starting a dialogue with Hizbul Mujahidin in the most crucial and tumultuous phase of political turmoil in the Valley, most of the militant Commanders who came forward to talk were targeted and killed during the government of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. How can the same Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the same PDP that oversaw the annihilation of a moderate and reconciliatory element in the militant leadership now sing songs of peace and prosperity? Where was Mufti Sahab’s “healing touch” when he overtly or covertly approved the annihilation of those Militant Commanders?
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has left a lot of vital questions about his devious and murderous role during political turmoil in Kashmir unanswered perhaps misguided into thinking that Kashmiris have forgotten the dreaded and brutal Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of the early ‘90s who broke all records of massacres, systemic repression and gross human rights violations. Mufti Sahib before speaking about the people and history of Srinagar should come clean on his alleged ‘deliberate negligence’ that resulted in the assassination of Shaheed Mirwaiz Molvi Muhammad Farooq during the tenure of Mufti Sahab as the Home Minister of India.
PDP is free to align with even the RSS or the VHP since they have a democratic right to forge alliances without worrying about the sentiments of the people they tragically and falsely claim to represent. However PDP should know that the people of Kashmir are conscious to the well established fact that PDP was invented and established by the BJP to weaken, fragment and bifurcate the voice and representation of the people of J&K. As Mufti Sahib is understandably trying to repay the favour of 1999 in 2014, while gauging the reverential statements of praise for Modi that have come from Mehbooba Mufti and Muzaffar Baig, it’s evident beyond doubt that PDP has now decided to act as the State Wing of a Modi-led BJP in 2014.