Senior National Conference leader and Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats, Ali Mohammad Sagar today strongly criticised PDP President Mehbooba Mufti for politicising the Shopian incident and behaving irresponsibly as a leader of the opposition. He said by giving political twist to unfortunate incident, she was accentuating the grief of the victim family.
In a statement issued here, Sagar said unlike the PDP government, the present government does not believe in speaking about human rights violations only when in power. He said Omar Abdullah’s government has made history by acting swiftly and awarding punishment to those found guilty of human rights violations.
Mr. Sagar said in the tragic incident of Shopian also, the government did not lose any time to set up a judicial probe to find out the truth. He said given the track record of the government, nobody should have any doubt about awarding exemplary punishment to anyone found guilty by the Commission of Inquiry. “The death of Neelofar and Asiya has shocked us and we are with the victim family in their hour of tragedy”, Sagar said, adding the government will not rest till it finds the truth behind their death.
Asking PDP president to stop shedding crocodile tears, the Minister said Mahbooba is coaxing people and misleading every one by stating that the police is refusing to register an FIR, which is not true since the victim’s family is free to file FIR if it so chooses.
The Minister said the government has entrusted the job of finding out the truth to the one-man Commission of Inquiry, which is free to subpoena any person or institution in its quest to search for truth. He said the government will sacrifice power for credibility and assured the people that no one, no matter who he was, will be shielded.
Meanwhile National Conference spokesperson has denounced the politics of hartals, saying frequent and prolonged strikes have dealt a severe blow to the economy of the valley as well as to the livelihood of the poor people.
He said the government having set up a judicial probe to dig out the truth in the Shopian incident and making it amply clear that anyone found guilty by the inquiry commission would not be spared, the tragic incident is being used as an excuse to heap hardships on the people.
In a statement, the spokesperson criticised the anti-people stand taken by the sponsors of hartals and said that they were leading them on the road to self destruction. He said they have no love and sympathy for the victim family and were only doing politics on a human tragedy that had left everybody hurt and anguished.
The spokesperson said if the politics of hartals was not stopped it would result in economic disaster for the state. The state was already facing problems and stone pelting and shutdowns were adding up to the miseries of the people. He said the tourism sector which formed the backbone of the State’s economy has been dealt a severe blow and wage earners and people associated with the tourist trade were left without any gainful activity. Likewise, he said, the education of our children has immensely suffered as they were not able to go to their educational institutions. Rations were drying up and patients were not able to reach hospitals, he added.
The spokesperson cautioned against politicising a human tragedy for ulterior motives. He said the government had already set up a judicial probe to dig out the truth behind the incident. He said the Chief Minister has repeatedly made his government’s stand clear that facts of the case would not be hidden and anyone found guilty would be given exemplary punishment to serve as a deterrent for others. He said after the unequivocal assurance of the Chief Minister, people should wait for the findings of the Inquiry Commission which has been asked to submit its report within a month.