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Mehbooba Mufti’s bid to strike a chord may be too little, too late
SRINAGAR: When Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti walked into Srinagar’s oldest women’s college on Sunday, she probably expected to oversee the state
SRINAGAR: When Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti walked into Srinagar’s oldest women’s college on Sunday, she probably expected to oversee the state medical entrance exam and meet officials on a routine visit.
Instead, she was surrounded by student protesters who shouted slogans demanding Azadi and against alleged police atrocities during the ongoing violence in the Valley. The angry demonstrations underlined rising public anger in the Valley, fuelled by contradicting narratives about the killing of insurgent Burhan Wani on July 8, and the cratering popularity of Mehbooba’s Peoples Democratic Party.
On Thursday, she tried to assuage some of that anger, suggesting that security forces would have spared Wani’s life if they knew he was among a group of militants they were pursuing. But the remark failed to calm frayed nerves and came too late, experts said.
She didn’t speak out during the first week of violence and her video statement that came five days after the protests began didn’t mention the encounter. This did major damage to her image and her party’s standing in the Valley, experts said. “When she saw the mood on the roads, she tried to do a U-turn,’’ said senior journalist Sheikh Mushtaq.
According to Kashmir observers, the PDP is making last-ditch efforts to win back upset voters who had supported Mehbooba and her father—late CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed — in the assembly polls two years ago. What has PDP worried is that the protests erupted from south Kashmir, considered the party’s bastion. The CM’s Thursday statement also triggered a wave of contradicting responses from her ally in government, the BJP.
The BJP contradicted Mehbooba, saying forces knew of Wani’s presence and that the identity of a “terrorist” didn’t matter.
Terming Wani’s killing as a “success”, Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Sat Sharma said security forces don’t act “without information”. “They knew who was inside and they undertook their job after taking everything into consideration,” he said. Earlier, deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh had supported Mehbooba’s claim, calling the killing an “accident’’. The contradictions about how Wani was killed had emerged from Day One.
While senior police officials said Wani was killed following specific intelligence about his presence and the CM was kept in the loop, PDP leaders said she had no knowledge.
Within days, the police also changed its stand, saying the operation was to nab Wani’s deputy Sartaj. The shifting stances, experts say, indicate that the PDP is trying to shift blame for the killing and the consequent violence.
Mehbooba hasn’t visited the houses of those killed in the protests, asking the families to meet her in a government guest house. But the biggest indicator of the challenge Mehbooba is facing is the change in her demeanour.
Over the past two decades, she built the PDP from the ground up by lending a shoulder to “victims of excesses by security forces” and visiting the houses of those killed by the army. She doesn’t step out of her security ring now.
