SRINAGAR
Independent lawmaker representing Langate assembly segment, Engineer Rasheed, on Saturday revealed that J&K Assembly Opposition members refrained from making him part of the delegation which is president of India today.
Speaking to media here while Kashmir is under strict curfew, Rasheed said that the meeting of J&K Assembly opposition members which was presided over by former CM and National Conference working president, Omar Abdullah, unanimously had decided to meet Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian leaders in New Delhi on Saturday.
“I supported the move and the idea was good as we had an opportunity to put forward our point,” he said.
“But Omar led delegation is New Delhi and I was contacted on Thursday, a day before the delegation flew to Union capital,” he said, “the middle men who had invited me to attend opposition meeting asked whether I was ready to meet Mukherjee.”
The middle men, Rasheed revealed, “asked me what I was going to talk in the meeting with President.”
“Obviously, I will talk about plebiscite and Right to Self Determination,” Rasheed responded to the middle men. “He refused,” the MLA Langate claimed.
“Don’t talk about plebiscite if you want to come,” Rasheed said the middle men told him.
Notably, Omar Abdullah chaired a meeting of all J&K Assembly opposition parties at the residence of Dr Farooq Abdullah on August 17, 2016. The meeting passed resolution seeking political dialogue and it decided to fly to New Delhi to meet president Mukherjee besides other Indian politicians.
Charging unionist opposition parties of deceiving people, Rasheed said, “the Omar led delegations stands exposed as they don’t dare to call spade a spade. My only concern is resolution of Kashmir dispute according to the aspirations of Kashmiris.”
Rasheed said that the Kashmir uprising is not about AFSPA removal, PSA disbanding and banning of pellet gun. “People are sacrificing their lives for resolution of the Kashmir issue,” he said.
Rasheed said that he was averse to certain points raised in the resolution passed by the unionist opposition parties. “It sought implementation of Working Group recommendation which speak about governance issues but people are fighting for resolution of Kashmir.”
Rasheed said that he had expressed his reservations in the same meeting. “I was told by Omar Abdullah to speak anything to media, there is no issue but they can’t accommodate my reservations in the statement.”
Rasheed said that no particular person, be it Mehbooba Mufti or Omar Abdullah, was responsible for killings in Kashmir. “We need to go to the root cause as why people are being killed,” he said.
Lashing out at National Conference and Congress for adopting dual policy on Kashmir, Rasheed said, “NC is keeping its constituencies happy, differently, in Kashmir and in Jammu.”
He said that National Conference boycotted August 15 function in Kashmir but NC Jammu province chief, Devender Singh Rana, was sitting in first row in one of such functions in Jammu. “Same is the case with Congress.”
Warning authorities to stop “terrorizing” Muslims in Jammu parts, Rasheed condemned slapping of PSA on Rehmatullah of Doda who is a student.
“The protests in Chenab and Pir Panjal Valley are not support to Kashmiris but these people are rising ante for themselves,” he said.
Asking Kashmiri Pandits to come back and “join their own movement, he condemned the attack on an event in Bengaluru on Kashmir.
Taking a dig at PM Narendra Modi, Rasheed said he was expecting that Modi will ask forces to shoot pellets on his face and not on Kashmiris in his August 15 speech. He was referring to the statement of PM Modi on Dalits in which