Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President and former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said that the use of bulldozers have made Kashmir worse than Afghanistan.
Addressing a news conference in New Delhi, Mehbooba, as per the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said the anti-encroachment drive launched in Jammu Kashmir is being used as a weapon to suppress the people.
She said they are not against the government’s move to retrieve the land from land grabbers, but livelihood of people should not get affected.
Mehbooba also alleged that the drive is aimed at taking the shelters away from the people and the situation in Kashmir has been turned worse than Afghanistan.
While responding to a query, she said that the elections cannot be a solution to the Kashmir issue.
She said that the government is trying to divert the attention from the main issue of Statehood, restoration of Article 370 and other things. “We want a complete solution to Kashmir issue,” she said.
“I compare it with Palestine because the BJP government is like an ‘East-India Company’ in Kashmir, in the entire country… Palestine is still better, their people talk, here it’s even worse, people’s houses are being demolished by bulldozer,” she said.
Mehbooba Mufti further lambasted the BJP saying that the party weaponised their brute majority to bulldoze constitution of the country. She said that they have weaponised media to crush the voice of dissent and the judiciary as well.
“If you’ll go to Kashmir, you’ll find it like Afghanistan because bulldozer is there. They’ve (BJP) outsourced our jobs, lands, and minerals. ED, NIA being used against the journalist, politicians in the country, we’re still special status state as we’ve other agencies to harass people,” Mufti said.
“Crooks, conmen are being given 45,000-hectare land while the people of Kashmir are being driven out of their land on the pretext of anti-encroachment drive,” she added. _(KNO)