If Jammu given statehood, then decision of J&K leaders to join Gandhi’s India stands negated: Mehbooba Mufti

Srinagar, Jan 9 (LatestNewsX) Former Chief Minister and president of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mehbooba Mufti said on Friday that the recent actions of the Hindu groups have negated the decision of the people in the “Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir” to reject the two-nation theory of Mohammad Ali Jinnah by joining Mahatma Gandhi’s secular India.

Addressing a press conference here, Mehbooba Mufti said the leadership of J&K joined the secular India represented by Gandhi, thereby rejecting the two-nation theory of Jinnah.

“Recent developments championed by right-wing Hindu groups like BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal and others have negated the decision of our leaders to have joined the Gandhian secular India by rejecting the two-nation theory of Mohammad Ali Jinnah,” she said.

Mufti described the revocation of permission to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College by the National Medical Commission (NMC) as ‘dangerous and unfortunate’.

“A few right-wing Hindu groups started an agitation for a few days, prompting the National Medical Commission (NMC) to revoke the permission to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College. This was done to cancel the admission of Muslim candidates, who secured their admission in the college by passing the NEET exam. Strangely, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said a day before that the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College should be closed and the next day the NMC revoked permission to the medical college. It proves that a nexus existed between the chief minister and the right-wing Hindu groups on this decision,” she alleged.

She said voices are being raised for giving statehood to Jammu on the basis of religion, and if this happened, the reason for Kashmir to have joined secular India would be proven wrong.

The PDP chief called the development ‘dangerous’ because, according to her, J&K has become a laboratory where experiments are done for testing such decisions and then extending them to the rest of the country.

“I fear tomorrow some right-wing groups can raise the same demand for the cancellation of admission of our boys and girls in other institutions outside J&K. We have become a laboratory where decisions like this are tested and then extended to other parts of the country,” she alleged.

She said NIA, ED, crime branch and other organisations are carrying out such raids daily in Kashmir when she was asked a question about the ED raid controversy in West Bengal.

“When three chief ministers were locked up in J&K in 2019, no big political party in the rest of the country raised their voice, and now they are facing the same situation. I am sure that Mamata Banerjee is a tigress and she will face it boldly,” she asserted.

sq/dpb