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PDP senior leaders meet for first time at Srinagar party office in over a year
Senior PDP leaders were earlier not allowed to hold meetings at the party office and were not allowed by the police to leave their homes.
Senior leaders and office bearers of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) met for the first time on Monday at its party headquarters since August 5, 2019, as the leaders were allowed to step out of their residences.
The meeting was presided by former minister and PDP’s senior vice president Abdul Rehman Veeri and attended by 21 senior leaders including former ministers and legislators.
Party spokesman Suhail Bukhari said that in the meeting it was observed that while on one hand, the internal situation of the state is very precarious, the situation along the Line of Control (LOC) and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is also on the boil.
“It was resolved that the party would continue to fight for resolution of the basic issue and advocate dialogue and reconciliation with all the stakeholders, as envisaged in the roadmap of our party which has become even more relevant today than ever before,” the PDP said in a statement.
At the meeting, the party observed that post August 5, 2019, a false semblance of normalcy is being created which in fact “resembles the peace of the graveyard”.
“People are still shell shocked and unable to come to terms with what has happened. The situation has created a kind of a stalemate where nothing except all kinds of anti-Kashmiri steps like domicile laws etc are being pushed in a hurry,” the statement said.
The spokesman said that party leaders demanded the immediate release of all political detainees irrespective of their political ideology, whether lodged in Kashmir or outside.
In the meeting leaders also expressed deep anguish over the recent spree of the killing of innocent people from Shopian, Sopore and Battamalloo and demanded that perpetrators be brought to book and families be given justice.
On September 16 for the first time after revocation of Article 370, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) youth leaders had met to deliberate on several issues at party headquarters in Srinagar.
Senior PDP leaders were earlier not allowed to hold meetings at the party office and were not allowed by the police to leave their homes. Currently almost all the PDP leaders other than party president Mehbooba Mufti have been set free. Mufti is still detained under the Public Safety Act.
The meetings of the PDP and its youth wing indicate that the government has allowed the party to resume its political activities.
The National Conference (NC) has already held a series of meetings in Srinagar and Jammu.
