nSenior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is furious over the way he and several other Opposition leaders were packed off from the Srinagar airport to Delhi on Saturday and denied permission to visit the valley. On Sunday, Rahul said leaders of the Opposition and the press got a taste of the “draconian administration” and “brute force” unleashed on the people of Jammu & Kashmir when they tried to visit Srinagar.
The delegation was there to take stock the situation following massive deployment of troops in the wake of abrogation of Article 370
The delegation included Congress’s Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and KC Venugopal, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury , Tiruchi Siva (DMK), Sharad Yadav (LJD), Dinesh Trivedi (TMC), D Raja (CPI), Majeed Menon (NCP), Manoj Jha (RJD) and D Kupendra Reddy JD(S).
TV journalists covering the visits beamed live picture from the Srinagar airport where policemen assaulted them in an attempt to prevent them from talking to anyone.
“It’s been 20 days since the people of Jammu & Kashmir had their freedom and civil liberties curtailed,” Leaders of the Opposition and the Press got a taste of the draconian administration and brute force unleashed on the people of J&K when we tried to visit Srinagar yesterday,” he said.
The former Congress president also posted a video of Saturday’s events, showing authorities reading out an order to the opposition leaders and Gandhi addressing the media.
The video showed Gandhi speaking to the media and alleging that media persons accompanying the delegation were mishandled and beaten up. He also said it is clear that things are “not normal” in Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Rahul’s sister and Congress s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday shared a video of a Kashmiri woman breaking down before Rahul Gandhi on a flight to New Delhi. Priyanka lashed out at the Centre for the restrictions in Kashmir and accused it of being anti-national by silencing the people of the valley.
“How long is this going to continue? This is one out of millions of people who are being silenced and crushed in the name of “Nationalism”. There is NOTHING more ‘political’ and ‘anti national’ than the shutting down of all democratic rights that is taking place in Kashmir. It is the duty of every one of us to raise our voices against it, we will not stop doing so,” Priyanka tweeted.
In the video, the woman is seen recounting how the lockdown in the Valley has affected the lives of those in Jammu and Kashmir. “Our children have not been able to move out of their houses. My brother is a heart patient. He could not see the doctor for 10 days. We are in trouble,” she said sobbing. In the video, Rahul can be seen trying to console the woman.
The woman met Rahul Gandhi in the flight that he and other opposition leaders had taken on their way to Delhi after the administration did not allow them to move out of the Srinagar airport.
On his return to Delhi the former Congress chief said things were not normal in Jammu and Kashmir. “We wanted to get a sense of what people are going through and help the situation if we could. But unfortunately we were not allowed to go beyond the airport. The press people with us were mishandled, beaten. It’s clear that things are not normal in Jammu and Kashmir,” Rahul said.