Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti appealed to the people to think of the next generations.
Highlights
- "Is this the solution to Kashmir," Mehbooba Mufti asks
- "Many forces have come to vitiate the atmosphere," she said
- "Guns, grenades never solved anything, only dialogue can help," she added
As the protests triggered by the death of Hizbul terrorist Burhan Wani fails to stop even after three weeks, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said Kashmir was being consumed by violence -- a place where "a 10-year-old boy slaps a shopkeeper", gangs of "masked children roam the streets" and young girls are threatened they would be "set on fire" for riding scooties.
"Is this the Kashmir that we want to see? Is this the solution to Kashmir? Targeting women and elderly people?" she said, making a strong appeal for peace in an exclusive interview to NDTV.
Quoting her father, the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, she said guns and grenades never solved anything, "Only dialogue can help".
Ms Mufti appealed to the people to think of the next generations, pointing out that children were being "used" to create unrest on the street. "People whose children were studying abroad, were instigating other children to violence".
While Pakistan declared Wani a martyr, Lashkar chief Hafiz Sayeed was reported to have admitted that his men had fanned the violence in the Kashmir Valley in which 47 people have died and more than 2,500 people had been injured. Many of them stand to lose their vision following injuries in the eye from the pellet guns of the security forces.
Attacking the instigators of this violence in no uncertain terms, the chief minister said "many forces" have come together to "vitiate the atmosphere".
This, she said, was their "business". "They spend money, send children from one area to another to create trouble, divert children and lead them to police stations and forces camps, because they know there will be retaliation. Only common people will get killed, while the instigators run away."
Coming down vehemently against the street protesters, Ms Mufti further said they were acting as the agents of destruction, destroying state property - police stations, camps and court complexes -- that will take years to rebuild.