National Conference demands Sayeed's resignation over Shabir Shah detention
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s main opposition party National Conference (NC) has alleged that the detention of separatist leader Shabir Ahmed Shah on reaching the Delhi airport on a flight from Srinagar on Saturday was part of an understanding between the Central government and Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. It termed it also as “part of a larger fixed-match between the two alliance partners”.
“It has become evident and apparent that Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed has arrived at an understanding with the Central government and the BJP to remain silent on the detention of Hurriyat Conference leaders in exchange for the BJP's assurance that they would desist from destabilizing his government in J&K,” NC spokesperson Junaid Azim Mattu said in a statement here. He added, "If this isn't the case, Mufti Sayeed should resign as the Chief Minister".
He also said, “We have entered a new territory of irony and U-turns in J&K. The same Mufti Sayeed who advocated dialogue between Hurriyat Conference, New Delhi and Islamabad went on to become the Chief Minister who put these leaders under house arrest to prevent them from going to New Delhi”.
He alleged that the separatist leaders were arrested and released on Thursday on demand from New Delhi and that this was clearly yet another incident that has exposed that the 'Common Minimum Programme' between PDP and BJP that promised dialogue with stakeholders internally and between New Delhi and Islamabad “was nothing but a moral-smokescreen to justify Mufti Sahab's complete sell-out to the BJP to become the Chief Minister".
"The other possibility, that some PDP leaders are peddling, is that Mufti Sayeed didn't know about the house arrests of Hurriyat leaders, nor was he the one to set them free,” he said adding “As improbable as this proposition might be given Mufti's clear understanding with the BJP over preventing Hurriyat leaders from meeting the Pakistani NSA, it is equally damning for J&K and condemnable as an act of systemic surrender by an elected Chief Minister”.
Mattu asked that If detentions of Hurriyat leaders are being made in J&K to prevent them from travelling to Delhi to meet visiting Pakistani dignitaries without the knowledge, leave alone consent of the elected Chief Minister (who also happens to be the Home Minister), one can safely deduce that the State government has been divested of its constitutional law and order jurisdiction and role".
