At the end of over a month long Assembly session, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday accused some national news channels of creating anti-talks atmosphere and pushing Jammu and Kashmir towards an abyss by bringing those people for a debate on their shows “who abuse India.”
Appealing for talks with Pakistan, saying without talks there is no other option not even a war, Mehbooba said some news channels have made any discourse about talks with Pakistan as an abuse and anti-national and they whip up passions over it.
“When Farooq Abdullah calls for the talks, they declare him anti-national. When I call for talks, they say Mehbooba Mufti is anti-national CM. There is no option without dialogue. News channels shouldn’t use Jammu and Kashmir for their TRPs. It is neither good for the state nor for the country”, Mehbooba warned.
She accused the news channels of bringing those people to their shows, whom no one knows in Kashmir. “They are not even known in their own Mohallas. They abuse India and others abuse them. It is creating a bad blood,” Mehbooba said warning it will have serious consequence for the State and the country.
“On one hand you say militants are coming from Pakistan and when we say you talk to Pakistan and tell her to stop infiltration, you accuse us of being anti-national. Didn’t (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee Ji take assurance from Pakistan that they will not allow their soil to be used against India? That time it was not seen anti-national,” she asked.
She said India has defeated Pakistan in all wars since 1947 but at present there is no option of war. She said no one should fear calling for the talks as Jammu and Kashmir is the worst sufferer.
She addec that on the governance front, the state was doing good as infrastructure has improved all across the State but political issue has engulfed the State so much that it should be discussed and debated.
She said her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, took a big decision to enter into alliance with a big leader (Narendra Modi) for the democracy and to find the “solution of the problem, which we are discussing for past one month (in the Assembly).”
“But unfortunately some media houses have made any talk of talks as anti-national discourse”, she added.
She said she wouldn’t not say people of Jammu and Kashmir should continue to die on the border, in the Fidayeen attacks and will not say don’t talk to Pakistan. “Which leader of Jammu and Kashmir will say let our people die day in and day out, our soldiers get martyred but will not call for the talks”, she said.
She said those who are questioning the Army should understand what Fidayeen means.
“If someone comes to get killed and to kill, what will foolproof security do to him,” she said. “Yesterday a woman died on the border, five soldiers died. How long we will suffer. If we will not talk about having talks who else will”, Mehbooba said.
“There is no option without talks as we are dying, whether it is civilian, an army men or CRPF personnel”, she added.
Mufti also took to her Twitter account and said: "Dialogue with Pakistan is necessary if we are to end the bloodshed. I know I will be labelled anti-national by news anchors tonight but that doesn’t matter. The people of J&K are suffering. We have to talk because war is not an option."
A CRPF constable was killed in a gunfight with terrorists in downtown Srinagar after security forces foiled militants' attempts to strike a CRPF camp. The mllitants were still holed up in an abandoned house in Karan Nagar in the heart of the city where intermittent firing was on.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, meanwhile, has claimed responsibility for the attack on the CRPF camp. Its Kashmir chief Mehmood Shah claimed in an e-mailed statement that the attack was perpetrated by its activists.
The heavily-armed militants tried to strike the CRPF camp, located very close to SMHS Hospital from where Lashkar- e-Taiba militant Naveed Jutt alias Abu Hanzala was freed from police custody by terrorists on February 6.
The incident comes two days after Jaish-e-Mohammad militants attacked an Army camp in Sunjwan area of Jammu, killing six people including five soldiers. Three militants were also killed in retaliation by the Army.
"The search operation is still on (at the camp)," Jammu- based Army public relations officer Lt Col Devender Anand told PTI.
India and Pakistan, Mehbooba told the House, have fought three wars but the Kashmir problem has been been resolved.
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