Kashmiris 'rethinking' over accession: Mufti

SRINAGAR: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Wednesday claimed the situation in Kashmir has worsened to an extent that the people have begun rethinking over the state's accession to India.

"There is a law of jungle here. Yesterday an SDM and other staffers with him were beaten up by the Army. Prison inmates are beaten up, bodies (of militants killed) in encounters are mutilated and burnt by some chemical..," claimed the former chief minister.

She was talking to reporters after a convention of her party workers at Khanabal in Anantnag district of the state.

"It does not seem we are with the India to which Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Maharaja Hari Singh had acceded. That India was the country of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and everyone," she said.

"Today, there is so much of oppression and atrocities committed that Kashmiris shiver and think which India did we accede to!" Mehbooba added.

Earlier in her address, Mehbooba termed the present situation in Kashmir calamitous and deeply worrying, and said that repression launched by authorities against the people of Kashmir is pushing the state towards the precipice of a disaster.

She said that Kashmir has been sadistically converted into an open-air prison with highway shut, prisoners tortured and tormented with impunity and bodies of militants sprinkled with chemicals, burnt and mutilated.

She said that the repression of such a level being unleashed upon people that Kashmir is fast turning into an unlivable place.

Commenting over the highway ban and how it is affecting the patients suffering from terminal diseases, Mehbooba said that from undermining the human rights to causing heaviest hit upon the Kashmir’s economy the gag imposed highway a clear of how Kashmiris are being hounded in more ways than one.

Cautioning that any attempt aimed at fiddling with the special status of Jammu and Kashmir with being sternly opposed by the people of the state, PDP President said that there are conspicuous conspiracies being hatched at different levels to change the Muslim majority status of the state. However, said Mehbooba, those who demand that Jammu and Kashmir’s special status should be scrapped must understand that that the relation between JK and India is based on Article 370. If this special status is scarped, it will nullify the legitimacy of the accession of JK with the Indian Union, reiterated the PDP President.

Meanwhile, the PDP chief has asked police not to take action against anyone involved in the pelting of stones at her motorcade in Anantnag district on Monday.

"Mehbooba Mufti asked police to release the youth, if anyone has been arrested, in the case of stone-pelting on her motorcade in Khirram area the other day," a PDP spokesman said.