Excelsior Correspondent
Marh (Jammu), Feb 3: Welcoming prompt follow up action on the Justice Verma Committee, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today regretted the Government attitude to recommendations on AFSPA by the same panel.
PDP patron was addressing an impressive public meeting at Marh Assembly segment near here today. “This is clearly a case of double standards and reflects poorly on our national resolve to uphold women’s dignity and rights without discrimination, which got a resounding expression recently in the wake of Delhi gang rape”, he said.
Mufti said Justice Verma’s recommendations on bringing crimes against women universally under the jurisdiction of civil courts was a welcome voice and it could become the first step towards revocation of this AFSPA which was introduced in totally different circumstances. He said it was unfortunate that the Union Cabinet did not even discuss the recommendations which sends out a highly negative signal to people of J&K and other States covered by it.
Stressing that AFSPA could not be a permanent feature of governance, Mufti said such laws were meant only for exceptional situations which no more exist in J&K. Denial of the right to legal redressal is the antithesis of our great constitution and people of J&K who have enthusiastically been participating in all democratic processes cannot be kept on margins anymore for any reason.
He said institutional redressal was the best antidote to alienation and having suffered a big deficit on this account in the past the State needs fast tracking of political process to bring it at par with rest of the country. “In that context the decision to ignore the Verma panel recommendations could prove counter productive”, he added.
Taking a dig at National Conference led coalition regime for its failure to fulfill its promise of revoking AFSFA for the last four years, Mufti said that PDP had never compromised its agenda for the sake of the power.
He said that PDP during its tenure had fulfilled the promises which the party had made with the people of Jammu and Kashmir in 2002 Assembly elections. “Although we had only 16 members in our kitty, we had changed socio-economic scene of the State besides creating a sense of security among the common masses”, he said and added that in its tenure biggest achievement of PDP led regime was that it had earned credibility of the people through its conviction and commitment.
Mufti asserted that it was all due to the pro-people policies of the party that PDP has emerged as strong alternative in the State within a short span of time. “PDP would forcefully pursue its pro-people agenda to restore dignity of the people and to establish sustainable peace, stability and prosperity”, he said.
Prominent among others who addressed the meeting included Dr Sameer Koul, Thakur Balbir Singh, Ved Mahajan, Jagjeet Singh Jagga, Thakur Suram Singh, Vikram Singh, Rajinder Singh Manhas, Chaman Manyal, Som Nath, Parbhakar Singh, Mohinder Kour, Suresh Sharma, Mohammad Shafi, Gopal Sharma, Ashok Sharma, K K Sharma, Suman Sharma, Ashok Bhat, Bhushan Sharma, Billa Ram and others.
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