Mehbooba Mufti: Won’t tolerate harm to civilians

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday that civilian killings are unacceptable and that she won’t tolerate any harm coming to the civilians while the security forces are dealing with law and order situations in the state.

She said she called defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday evening and had earlier told Udhampur-based Chief of Army’s Northern Command Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda that Handwara and Natnusa-like incidents, in which five people were killed in security forces’ firings are unacceptable and come as a major setback to the efforts of the state government in consolidating peace dividends in the state.

Ms Mufti on Saturday flew to Kupwara district headquarters for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation and to hold a meeting with senior officials of civil administration, the police, the Army and other security forces to discuss measures to contain it.

An official spokesman here said she also met the victims’ families to offer her condolences besides holding an interaction meeting with the prominent members of the civil society to seek their help towards defusing the situation. She was accompanied by BJP leader and deputy chief minister, Nirmal Kumar Singh.

She said, “I’ve told Lt. Gen. Hooda to exercise maximum restraint while dealing with law-and-order situations. The defence minister has assured me of time-bound investigation into the unfortunate incidents that led to the death of civilians during protests at Handwara and Natnusa so that exemplary punishment is given to those found guilty”.

She said she wanted to be with the people at this hour, grasp the sequence of events that led to the cycle of violence and the action taken by the law-enforcing authorities.

She said she was deeply saddened by the series of unfortunate events which led to the death of four young boys and a woman. “I never dreamt of coming to Kupwara like this after taking over as the Chief Minister. It is most unfortunate,” she said. She earlier told the official meeting that the Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) should not remain a mere word but become a potent tool while dealing with law-and-order situations.

Opposition National Conference (NC) said that Ms Mufti’s Kupwara visit was a classic case of “too little, too late”, especially after the chief minister chose to remain in New Delhi while the youth were losing their lives in the Valley.

Former minister and NC’s provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani said in a statement here that the chief minister held “purely political and partisan” meetings in New Delhi while the youth were being killed in Handwara and elwehere in Kupwara district and asked her to clarify what apparent sense of urgency compelled her to meet BJP president Amit Shah and the party’s national general secretary Ram Madhav in Delhi when she should have rushed back to the Valley as soon as possible.