Srinagar: National Conference spokesman Junaid Mattu has lashed out at Mehbooba Mufti for misleading the people of Srinagar by issuing baseless, rhetorical statements that contradict Mufti Sayeed’s ‘barbaric and brutal track record of repression and massacres in Srinagar’. It was the PDP Government that, through a depraved intrigue tried to rob Srinagar of its political and administrative centrality by trying to shift the state capital from our historic city,” Mattu has said in a statement issued to KNS.
He has added that while Mehbooba Mufti ‘pretends’ to be concerned about the Shahtoos trade, she along with her party has been absent from empathizing with our artisans, a sad reality validated by the fact that the PDP Government chose to offer nothing beyond nauseating lip-service to the artisans of Shahar-e-Khaas. “It was the NC-Congress coalition Government under the stewardship of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, that floated numerous schemes and initiatives to boost the Handicrafts industry in the state. It was the NC-Congress coalition that ensured better micro-finance and credit availability to thousands of skilled artisans and workers. A comparison between PDP’s conspicuous lack of efforts in the Handicrafts sector and its delusionary rhetoric exposes the party’s hypocrisy and lies.”
He said Mehbooba has the audacity to speak about the sufferings of the women of Kashmir without explaining under whose persuasion Mufti Mohammad Sayeed defended the security forces by speaking against the alleged victims of Kunan Poshpora. Were those not the women of Kashmir?
Terming Mehbooba Mufti’s statements regarding the Modi led NDA as indicators of her party’s progressive infatuation with the RSS-mentored Right wing, Mattu said that PDP’s two biggest contributions to the people of Srinagar have been the Gaw Kadal Massacre and the assassination of Mirwaiz Molvi Mohammad Farooq while Mufti Sayeed was in the direct command of the administration and security forces in J&K. I should commend Mehbooba Mufti for inventing a face to go to the people of Srinagar with a past as heinous and barbaric as of Mufti Sahab as the Ex-Home Minister of India who turned Srinagar into a mass graveyard within months.
“It is alleged that Mufti Sahab took the conscious decision to refuse security cover for Mirwaiz Molvi Mohammad Farooq, apparently thinking about the tactical gains that could be exploited from a flared-up confrontation between Mirwaiz supporters and armed militants. Now two decades later, the same set of people albeit in a different costume have come back to the doors of the people of Srinagar misguided into thinking that history starts with PDP’s formation.”
PDP turned Srinagar into the most polluted city in the country and chose to do scant nothing to clean its lakes, rivers and waterways. They claim to have achieved grand success in Srinagar by beautifying the Jehlum Bund which was incidentally an achievement of Azad Sahab. Their other supposedly grand achievement is the construction of perhaps the modern world’s sole single-lane fly-over which has now been found to be technically lacking on numerous fronts.
“As reported in a local news paper a few weeks back, a Central Team consisting of Municipal authorities and corporators from across the country had praised Srinagar as one of the cleanest cities they had come across. This phenomenal difference both in reality and in perception has been achieved through a sustained focus on developing Srinagar as a modern, ecologically balanced and clean city. And this stage stands very tall in comparison to the fact that Srinagar was termed as the most polluted city in the country under PDP’s rule.”
Mattu said that PDP has conceded defeat even before the parliamentary elections for the Srinagar seat by fielding a weak candidate who is virtually unknown at the grassroots level. This is the same candidate who mysteriously won a by-election by a slim margin and was defeated from the same constituency in 2008 despite having been the Ex Finance Minister of the State. Tariq Karra’s covert and indirect role has been repeatedly mentioned in the Kundal Committee Report. The Kundal Committee report had exposed many skeletons in the PDP cupboard which involved their ministers Tariq Hamid Karra and Qazi Mohammad Afzal. When the same people talk about high morals, one cannot help but smile at the inherent irony. (KNS)
