Real Jamaat behind bars, says Mehbooba on candidates backed by banned outfit joining J&K election race

“They (referring to the National Conference) say we have to make a government to macadamise the roads,” she said, addressing a large crowd at Chandgam in Pulwama to campaign for the party candidates for Pulwama and Rajpora assembly constituencies.

“I am saying that we have to become the voice of those youth, who are in graveyards, of those women who have become widows, of the children who have become orphans. We have to keep their voice alive,” she said.

“We have to talk on the Kashmir issue till the Kashmir issue resurrects,” she said to applause.

Mufti said that New Delhi is saying that the Kashmir issue has ended, but she does not agree. “I am saying that the Kashmir issue is alive till our martyrs are sleeping in our graveyards, till our widows and orphans are in our homes,” she said.

On candidates backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami joining the electoral fray, Mufti said the “real Jamaat” is behind the bars.

“The Jamaat-e-Islami schools were banned, the houses of its members were locked and their orchards were seized. And then they broke it like they split the PDP,” she said. “It is difficult to understand, one candidate says I am the Jamaat candidate, the other says, no I am the real Jamaat candidate. But the real Jamaat-e-Islami is in jail, the NIA and ED are after them. All the agencies are after them.”

She said that if New Delhi is sincere, then the Jamaat should join the electoral process and authorities should lift the ban on it. “If the Delhi government really wants the Jamaat to be part of democratic setup, lift the ban on them,” she said. “Return them to their orchards. The threats through NIA and ED will not work.”

Mufti praised the people of south Kashmir for changing the “system” and giving Jammu and Kashmir a political alternative in the form of the PDP. “The people of south Kashmir, especially Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Islamabad, gave 16 members to PDP and showed us the path to the government in 2002,” she said. “You changed the system in Jammu and Kashmir, you ended suppression in Kashmir, you ended POTA and disbanded the (Special) Task Force (of J-K Police). You made a new beginning by giving your vote to the PDP.”

She said that her party reciprocated the mandate by giving an Islamic University and an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to Pulwama.

Mufti said the people have to decide whom to vote for. “On one side, you have a party that says we should get to power by any means. They are apologising with folded hands because they know that Mufti (Mohammad Sayeed) sahib has given an alternative to the people in the form of PDP and if they do anything wrong, people will go to PDP,” she said.