Terror attacks: Mehbooba says accountability should be fixed

PDP President Mehbooba Mufti during a press conference at party headquarters in Srinagar on Tuesday. — Excelsior/Shakeel
PDP President Mehbooba Mufti during a press conference at party headquarters in Srinagar on Tuesday. — Excelsior/Shakeel

SRINAGAR, July 16: PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday sought accountability for the “loss of 50 soldiers in the past 32 months” in terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, saying “heads should have rolled by now” and that the DGP should have been sacked.
She said that young officers were becoming “cannon fodder” for the Government of India in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Unfortunately, there is no accountability. Heads should have rolled by now … The DGP (R R Swain) should have been sacked by now,” Mehbooba told reporters here.
“What has happened in Doda yesterday is highly condemnable. We lost our brave soldiers and officers in this attack… There is no accountability. The incumbent DGP is more busy fixing things politically. He is more into how to crush PDP and how to harass the people,” she charged.
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“Almost 50 soldiers lost their lives in past 32 months. Nobody is being held accountable,” she said.
“Passport and antecedents’ verification has been weaponised, UAPA is being invoked against more and more people, the business community is being harassed, our clerics are also not spared. They are being blackmailed. Bar Association people are being put behind bars. What is happening,” she asked.
Employees are being sacked on charges of corruption. Most of them are from the majority community. The incumbent DGP has alienated the local people. He is treating them as Pakistanis,” she alleged.
Referring to the spate of terror attacks in Jammu region, she said these incidents are taking place in areas which have never seen any militancy.
“When the situation was very bad here, such incidents did not take place even then. Young men are dying here and there is no accountability. But they are trying to hide behind the mainstream and regional parties. They want to hide their failures. Why did people of north Kashmir vote for a voice which called for plebiscite and self determination instead of nationalist forces like Omar Abdullah or Sajad Gani Lone,” she said.
“For the last six years, the BJP narrative has been that everything is under control in Jammu and Kashmir. Even Hurriyat leaders have either died or are behind the bars. Then what have you done? You have started a war against your own people,” she added. (PTI)