Police Stop Mehbooba Mufti’s Protest March To Parliament

Source: PTI

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday took to the streets in the national capital to protest against the ongoing anti-encroachment drive being carried out by the administration in Jammu and Kashmir.

Carrying placards reading ‘Stop Bullying, Stop Bulldozing’, Mufti, along with scores of supporters, gathered at the busy Boat Club area with an aim to march towards Parliament in a bid to inform the opposition parties about the ongoing ‘Bulldozer Policy’ being followed in the Union Territory.

However, police detained the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, and took her and her party workers to Jantar Mantar. The protesters dispersed from Jantar Mantar.

“We had come to inform the public, opposition parties and members of the ruling BJP about the misery faced by the public at large in Jammu and Kashmir. If we can’t go to Parliament, I wonder where we should go then. Does the government want us to get our grievances redressed at the United Nations?” Mufti asked.

During the protest, Mufti accused Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and the Jammu and Kashmir administrations of turning the Union Territory into Afghanistan by indulging in large-scale destruction.

“There is no rule of law in Jammu and Kashmir. First, we were deprived of our identity, then our jobs and now our homes and shops. Wonder what this government wants?” she asked.

There is no rule of law that can be seen in Jammu and Kashmir and “we came all the way to Delhi to speak our hearts out. But it seems that the voice of the general public is muzzled here as well,” Mufti alleged.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and other political parties have denounced the anti-encroachment drive and asked the administration to stop it, claiming that it is affecting the poor.

Meanwhile, speaking in Srinagar last month, Mehbooba Mufti had said the solution to the Kashmir problem is within the framework of the Constitution but the starting point for any reconciliation will have to be the restoration of the special status and statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

“There is no way other than reconciliation in Jammu and Kashmir but the starting point for it will be the restoration of whatever has been snatched from the (erstwhile) state,” Mufti told reporters in Srinagar.

She was responding to a question about Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s statement on Kashmir in an interview with Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV. “I do not know what he (Sharif) has said, but we in the PDP believe that the solution to this issue is within the Constitution of the country. It is the Constitution that had given a special status to Jammu and Kashmir,” the former Union minister said.

She said her party wants that relations between India and Pakistan improve.

“We want the relations between the two countries to improve and that more routes across the border are opened…. And there should be free movement and trade as well,” the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief said.