‘Such people have malicious intentions’: Naqvi on Mufti’s remark on J&K issue

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti asked the Centre not to test the patience of Jammu and Kashmir citizens and drew the example of the US-like supreme power packing their bags to head home in the face of Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Union minister of minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Saturday took a dig at People’s Democratic Party (PDP) supremo Mehbooba Mufti for her statement regarding the Jammu and Kashmir situation, saying that people who give “such statements have malicious intentions”.

Responding to PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti's remark, Union minister of minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said PM Narendra Modi believes in the culture of tolerance and zero-tolerance to terrorism. (Mohd Zakir/HT Photo)

Earlier in the day, Mufti asked the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government to rectify its mistake of disintegrating Jammu and Kashmir. Addressing a gathering, the PDP chief said, “It needs courage to endure what people of Jammu and Kashmir are enduring. The day [people] run out of patience, everything will be doomed.”

She also stressed not testing the patience of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and drew the example of the Taliban recapturing Afghanistan nearly two decades later. “See what is happening in our neighbourhood [Afghanistan]. Even the US, which is such a massive power, had to pack their bags and withdraw from the country,” Mufti added.

Reiterating her demand to restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP chief said discourse around the region and matters associated with it should be done similar to how BJP leader and late Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee had done. “There is still time; rectify yourself,” Mufti said while referring to the Centre.

Naqvi said PM Modi believes in the culture of tolerance and zero-tolerance to terrorism. “With that resolution, India and its people are going forward,” the minister, who is also the deputy leader of the Rajya Sabha, added.

This development comes on the day the Union territory (UT) police chief Dilbag Singh visited the Kulgam district and chaired a review meeting focussed on an array of political killings that recently occurred in the region.

“All the suspicious elements that are providing any kind of support to militant activities should be kept under the radar to foil their attempts. Stringent action should be taken against the elements found involved in anti-peace activities,” a statement quoted Singh as saying.

The meeting comes in the aftermath of BJP leader Altaf Thakur claiming that as many as nine of his party workers have been killed in the Kulgam district this year.

Meanwhile, a senior J&K Police official said that three Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist militants, including one Wakeel Shah, who killed BJP leader Rakesh Pandita in June, were gunned down by security forces in the Tral area of Pulwama district on Saturday.

Officials said that the three JeM terrorists were killed during an encounter with the forces after the latter launched a cordon and a search operation in the Pulwama district following the receipt of inputs about the presence of the militants.

(With inputs from ANI)