Mehbooba plans to release Kashmiri youth involved in unrest before Eid
Srinagar: Scores of Kashmiri youth languishing in jails for their involvement in 2008, 2009 and 2010 unrests and later incidents are being freed before Eid-ul-Fitr, the festival that will end the ongoing Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the first week of July.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday that Jammu and Kashmir Home Department has been asked to prepare a list of the youth whom she termed as “misguided” as they were involved in various cases of violence since 2008 and were subsequently booked under criminal charges by J&K Police.
Read: Mehbooba Mufti seeks decisive mandate as Anantnag goes to polls
"My government will study these cases and we are contemplating an amnesty scheme for those youths who are willing to shun the path of violence and lead normal lives,” she said. She added, “Many of these youths who are languishing in jails will be set free before Eid and the remaining cases will also be considered on humanitarian grounds”.
She said, “Unlike previous government, it is not our hobby to jail people but sometimes certain harsh steps are necessitated to prevent law and order problems." The Chief Minister was replying to the discussion on demand for grants of the departments under her charge in the State Assembly.
Read: Clashes in Jammu as 'lunatic' defiles Hindu temple
She announced shifting of historic central prisons out of the twin capitals of Srinagar and Jammu and said the premises would be developed to create recreational facilities for the locals.
Earlier in May this year, she had hinted that granting general amnesty for separatist militants if they submit to the Constitution and rule of law, may be an option before the PDP-BJP government headed by her. She told a meeting of Unified Headquarters held in Srinagar that it would be in the fitness of things “to give an option of homecoming to the local youth who have picked up guns”.
On Wednesday while speaking in the State Assembly, Mufti described Jammu and Kashmir as an abode of secularism and asked the opposition to stop smelling conspiracies in policies of the coalition government which, she claimed, are aimed at restoring peace and ushering the State towards a new era of prosperity.
She said the government is committed towards “honourable return” of displaced Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley but a sense of security must prevail in the community before they can restart their lives at their native places. “We will settle them temporarily in transit accommodation and once they adjust to the new life, they can gradually restart their lives at their native places," she reiterated.
She also said that the PDP-BJP government is committed to protect Article 370 which she described as the lifeline of relations between India and Jammu and Kashmir. She said the amendments effected in the State’s new industrial policy 2016 were necessitated to protect the special status of J&K.
