After PDP's peace appeal, Geelani asks Mufti to join 'aazadi movement'
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) had on Saturday made a fervent appeal to separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani to consider Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti his daughter and give her a chance to serve the people of the state.
The octogenarian leader reacted to PDP’s appeal after almost a day and asked Mufti to give up playing the role of a "collaborator" and join the peoples' "movement" in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We’ve three-prong relations with her and these are human, national and religious. But she has utterly failed to uphold any of these,” he said in a statement here on Sunday.
“Humanity teaches us to respect and honour the human beings irrespective of their caste, creed or culture but she by her barbaric armed forces and uncontrolled police has turned this heavenly land into the hell,” he elaborated, adding, “Here, every house is mourning the demise of their loved ones, thereby tarnishing the very fabric of this honourable and pious relation.”
Speaking on “national” and “milli” (Islamic community) relations, Geelani said these demand her to be on the part of her people and join their just struggle, “but she has been competing in killing and maiming her own people for the petty power and to please her masters.”
On religious association with the Chief Minister, Geelani said that the killing of eight CRPF jawans in a militant ambush at Pampore on June 25 this year “brought shame on her Muslim identity but daily ruthless killings of our youths fail to appeal her conscience to feel sorry for being an Indian collaborator.”
Reacting to the attack on CRPF jawans, Mufti had said she was ashamed as a Muslim.
A spokesperson of Geelani’s Hurriyat Conference also reacted on PDP’s plea that he should treat Mufti as his daughter, and said, “Geelani Sahib is the leader of this nation and he treats every woman as his daughter but how is ‘this daughter’ who feels happy to confine her fatherly figure in his house for years together but doesn’t hesitate to emotionally blackmail him to call for his help whenever her position is threatened.”
“As a ‘father’, Geelani advised the ‘daughter’ not to ruin her hereafter for the comfort and luxury of those who kill and destroy us,” the spokesperson added.
The PDP had on Saturday also requested the key separatist leader to cooperate with Mufti in bringing about peace in the Valley. “We appeal Geelani Sahib to cooperate and give Mufti the opportunity that she deserves. He must think of her as his daughter, who also happens to be the first Kashmiri Muslim woman to lead our State,” PDP chief spokesman Dr. Mehboob Beg said in a statement.
“She is not the conventional politician that we deal with most of the times. In case she does not bring about a change, she will be the first to own up and make way. I appeal to Geelani Sahib to give her a chance. She understands the pain and pulse of the people as she has risen from the grass roots,” he said.
Beg appreciated the Chief Minister’s statement after her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier during the day and in which she appealed to the protestors back home to give her a chance.
“It is only fair that she is given a chance, it is not that she is asking for the moon. We must give her a chance to address our grievances as we have done with leaders in the past,” Beg said.
He added that it would be fair that “we give her a chance that she thoroughly deserves as the Chief Minister of the State, who has risen from the grass roots.”
