Former chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday asked that if the central government can talk to the Taliban, whom it once labelled “terrorists", why does it have animosity with its "own people". "You called Taliban terrorists, and today you are talking to them. But why do you have animosity with your own people?" Mufti asked while addressing a party convention in Srinagar. "Why have you strangled your own people? Why don't you let the Kashmiris speak?" Taliban's foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is in New Delhi on an official visit. This is the first visit from any top Taliban official to India. Referring to the warm welcome accorded to the Taliban foreign minister in India, Mufti said that times change. "You might have seen yesterday (Saturday). The Taliban that the BJP was calling terrorists, they would say they have killed countless, but today they are saluting them," Mufti said in her address. "When he (Muttaqi) went to Darul Uloom Deoband, which they (the BJP) wanted to shut, he was showered with flowers. (It is) because time changes.” Attacking the BJP government, Mufti said that while "your people" pluck the beards of Indian Muslims and remove their skullcaps, “you are talking with folded hands to the Taliban, who have long beards and big turbans”. Mufti said it is important for the Centre to connect with the Indian Muslims. "It is strange. You talk to the Taliban, you make good relations with the Taliban because it is in the interest of the country," she said. "But first you have to connect with the Indian Muslims, whose mosques, madrasas and houses you are demolishing.” Mufti said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir joined hands with India, preferring it over Pakistan, but "you have made their life miserable".
