The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti Sunday accused the Union Territory administration of adopting a 'partisan' approach after it disallowed a youth convention at her Gupkar road residence in Srinagar.
The local authorities had cited Covid-19 restrictions and security implications before preventing the former Chief Minister from holding a youth convention at her Fairview residence located on the fortified Gupkar road.
Unhappy with these developments PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti uploaded a video message on the official twitter handle of the party explaining the reasons why she was barred from addressing a youth convention at her residence. In the video clip, the PDP Chief was seen standing between the empty rows of chairs at her Fairview residence. She said, "no one is scared of Mehbooba Mufti. They are scared of the Kashmiri youth". The former Chief Ministeralleged that the government is pushing the youth to the wall by denying them political space in Kashmir.
"These empty chairs reflect the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Our meeting with young people was sabotaged by this government on the pretext of Covid, but no such excuse is employed when other parties hold public meetings".The National Conference has been holding a series of meetings in the region. Other parties including Peoples Conference and APNI party and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi are addressing public rallies in poll bound Uttar Pradesh. Today, Omar Abdullah held a party convention in Anantnag. Yesterday, he was in Baramulla district where he addressed a party convention. Why these restrictions exist only for PDP,she charged.
"I wanted to talk to our youth. They sabotaged it. They (union government) find new ways to deny rights to the youth. Youth of this place is kept away from democracy and pushed to violence so that it becomes easy for them to kill, beat or imprison them. That's what they have been doing," she added.
However, the police claimed, "There are credible inputs of vehicle-bound IEDs being used to target civilians and high-security installations. The Gupkar Road houses high-security buildings of various organizations, security-sensitive establishments, and intelligence agencies. Allowing a large number of vehicles to be parked in this high-security zone would have jeopardized the security in the area".
"Given the prevalent Covid situation and larger security implications of allowing such a large number of people and accompanying cars and vehicles into a high-security zone, it was not advisable to allow such a large flow of people and unchecked vehicles," police said.
After the high voltage drama ended the PDP workers were seen protesting and shouting slogans like "restore democracy'".
In its statement the police also maintained, "no official residence has been known to have hosted large political rallies on Gupkar Road in the recent past. Legal Orders for necessary restrictions on the convention were passed by the Executive Magistrate, South Srinagar keeping in mind the COVID protocol and security sensitivity of Gupkar zone. It is completely incorrect that Ms. Mufti is under house arrest". "The local administration had advised PDP to apply for holding this convention in a more open area in view of Covid-19 and security reasons," the police said.