Kashmir now looks like Afghanistan, with the L-G administration bulldozing the houses of poor and marginalised in the guise of anti-encroachment drive, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti said at a press conference here on Monday.
The former J&K Chief Minister also urged all Opposition leaders including former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar to raise their voice for Kashmir.
Her comments came in the backdrop of an intensive anti-encroachment drive started by the Union Territory administration, clearing “unauthorised” construction in State-owned lands. The administration said the drive is aimed at the “influential people” who in the past had misused their position.
‘BJP bulldozing Constitution’
Ms. Mufti alleged that the BJP has been using its brute majority to weaponise everything and “bulldoze” the Constitution. “Earlier we used to think that BJP had taken a cue from what Israel does with Palestine but now they have left it behind. In Palestine at least people talk. We are worse than Afghanistan the way bulldozers are being used to demolish homes,” she said.
She claimed that according to the government even the centuries-old Shankaracharya Temple and the cantonment built by the erstwhile Maharaja were on encroached land. Ms. Mufti said the initial call for “Ek Samvidhan, Ek Vidhan, Ek Pradhan” has now given way to “one country, one language, one religion” where there is no Constitution.
She denied the government’s claim that “normalcy” has returned to J&K, saying that the voice of anyone speaking about the Constitution is being crushed. “The BJP is behaving like the East India Company in Kashmir and elsewhere in the country,” she said. She further alleged that 45,000 hectare land is being handed over to ”crooks and conmen” driving away the people of Kashmir.
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