Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 2: Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today warned that the banning Jamaat-e-Islami will have dangerous ramifications.
The Peoples Democratic Party president said that the ideology can’t be imprisoned. “You cannot imprison an ideology or an idea. There are thousands of Kashmiris in villages and cities associated with the Jamaat. JeI is a social organization and imposing a ban on it is a revengeful act”, she said.
“Children studying in JeI run schools have been securing positions in exams. What will happen to these children after you close their schools?” she asked.
Mehbooba said that banning the JeI could have dangerous ramifications. “By doing this, the BJP is converting Jammu and Kashmir into an open prison. We had resisted these moves of the BJP when we were in power with them,” she said.
She said as the Chief Minister and the Home Minister of the State during the PDP-BJP coalition, she never got any credible intelligence reports about the links of Jamaat workers with the militants.
“An environment has been created in the country in which beating and harassing Kashmiris is celebrated. It is unfortunate and there seems to be nobody to control this”, she said.
Mehbooba urged Government to impose ban on RSS and others who openly brandish swords and lynched people on one name or other. “At RSS Shakhas, they openly hold swords, they lynched people to death for eating something they did not like, they should have been banned not JeI, which is working in education sector and uplifting the downtrodden section of society,” she said.
She also condemned the NIA raid on Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as well, saying he is a religious cleric and such raids on him must not take place. “During PDP-BJP bonhomie, we thwarted all such moves of BJP but now there is none to stop them” she said.
Mehbooba said that after IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman was returned to India, it appeared talks would start between India and Pakistan “but war mongering is still continuing in India”.
Earlier, the PDP took a protest march in Srinagar against the Government decision of banning Jamat-e-Islami and termed such a measure unconstitutional and undemocratic.
The party leaders said that JeI has been playing a vital role in providing education to thousands of children by running hundreds of quality educational institutes and extending all necessary help to thousands of economically downtrodden people across the State.
PDP leader and MLC Mohammad Khurshid Alam and Abdul Qayoom Wani said the decision of banning the JeI and sealing its properties in Kashmir will have far-reaching consequences and could push the already alienated youth of Kashmir towards the wall further.
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