Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 4: National Conference vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said if voted to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections he will rehabilitate the stone pelters and scrap the Public Safety Act (PSA).
Addressing a public meet at Rajpura in district Pulwama, Omar said that in the forth coming Assembly elections the party will come up with comprehensive program for rehabilitation of stone pelters.
“Regarding the cases of stone pelting, when our manifesto will be out, we will be having something for them as well. You know the alienation comes among youth because they feel that they are being subjected to injustice and that becomes the reason that they pick up arms”, he said.
The former Chief Minister said that if voted to power will scrap the PSA. “Under PSA, people were being arrested for years and were made to go through a lot, then we had made few amendments in the law but they were not enough. I am telling you that if we are voted to power we will scrap PSA”, he said.
“I have already taken an undertaking that once in power with a strong mandated Government we will obliterate PSA from the law books of the State. During my previous stint as CM, I brought some changes to the PSA law to make it more juvenile friendly”, Omar said.
“In my tenure, I raised the issue of decreasing the foot print of armed forces in various areas; my government actually did lessen the grid of bunkers. I made earnest efforts to impress on the need of removing AFSPA from the areas where situation was considerably peaceful. However the PDP-BJP was not able to keep up the momentum of my good work. Today we have a situation where in our highways have been snatched from us. What good was achieved by bringing down the foot prints of security forces in my time was also put into an abyss by the former BJP-PDP led Government”, the former Chief Minister said.
Omar said that Mehbooba has taken the situation to such a pass that she is herself unable to campaign for parliamentary elections in Kashmir in particular the South Kashmir areas.
The NC vice president while censuring the Modi led BJP Government said: “Had the BJP Government been able to deliver on any of its promises it made to the people of India in the run up for 2014 elections, it would not have hunched to low to seek votes in the name of Balakot, and Pulwama. We see them not speaking on their achievements. Their raising of emotive issues is rather an oblique acceptance of failure by them.”
Omar said that designating of Masood Azhar as global terrorist will have no impact on the ground. “It will not be having much effect on the ground. Before this, Hafiz Sayeed was also designated as the global terrorist, nothing much changed because of that. And in same way, Masood Azhar has been designated as the global terrorist by the United Nation, nothing much will change in J&K”, he said.
Omar said that Modi is using Kashmir as an election agenda. “There was a notion that whenever there were elections in Pakistan, Kashmir was being used to gather votes, but it has now become evident that in India the prime issue during elections is J&K”, he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel