Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday said she was not surprised by the revelations made by ex-RAW chief A S Dulat in his latest book about National Conference president Farooq Abdullah “privately’ supporting the abrogation of Article 370.
“Dulat’s revelations are nothing new for me. This father-son duo (Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah) went to meet them (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) on August 3 (2019). Farooq Sahib did not even go to Parliament (on August 5, 2019). He stayed back. So there is nothing surprising for me,” Mufti said while addressing a PDP workers’ convention here.
Article 370 granting special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated by the Centre on August 5, 2019.
Mufti also claimed that in 2014, Omar Abdullah met Amit Shah for government formation in Jammu and Kashmir.
“He told Shah not to form a government with the PDP but to go with the National Conference and that too unconditionally,” she alleged.
Dulat’s book, titled “The Chief Minister and the Spy”, is slated to be released on April 18.
Mufti also claimed that one of the cornerstones of PDP’s alliance with the BJP from 2015 to 2018 was that Article 370 will not be touched.
“In those two years and 10 months, Article 370 remained untouched,” she said.The PDP chief also spoke about the Waqf (Amendment) Act and “attacks” on mosques and shrines, saying graves were being dug up on the pretext that these were remnants of the Mughal empire.
“The signs of the Mughal empire are Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Qutub Minar and Fatehpur Sikri, which are flocked by millions of tourists every year.
“If you are looking for descendants of Mughals, they are not among us Muslims. They are somewhere around you… Because Mughals were kings and they did not marry into ordinary Muslim households but into princely states whose descendants are sitting around you,” Mufti said.
Stating that the prime minister talks about the upliftment of Pasmanda Muslims, Mufti said, “I want to ask Modiji, is breaking down a madrassa in Madhya Pradesh or a 100-year-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh upliftment of Muslims?” She also said that Muslims in the country should fight against the Waqf amendments peacefully.
“I request my fellow Muslims in India to fight against it (Waqf law) peacefully… What happened in Murshidabad was not good,” she said.
On the perception that Muslims are being targeted in India, Mufti said they should not be treated in the same way as the terrorists treated Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley.
