Srinagar, June 6 :
Victory of Independent candidate Abdul Rashid Sheikh, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, from Baramulla Lok Sabha continues creating ripples in the political circles in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a massive upset, jailed Engineer Rashid defeated National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah and People’s Conference president Sajad Lone with a huge margin.
On Thursday, Omar Abdullah shared a new story “Engineer Rashid’s election victory shows Kashmiri secessionism is far from spent” on X.
A controversy erupted after a television news agency attributed the excerpts of the article shared by Omar to him.
The Peoples Democratic Party youth leader Waheed Parra reacted sharply and said he was extremely disappointed with Omar.
“Extremely disappointed with @OmarAbdullah’s regressive stance, echoing the divisive politics of 1987, and dubbing a democratic expression as an ‘Islamist wave’. His family’s history with the Muslim Conference clashes with calls for the exclusion of PDP, Er Rashid, and JEI, and will put Kashmir into perpetual conflict with state. A more prudent approach, akin to @MehboobaMufti’s plea for Er Rashid’s release, would have been acknowledgment of mandate,” Parra said on X.
Omar responded to Parra’s post saying that he had himself been an advocate for the release of not only Engineer Rashid, others also who were languishing in jails.
“Waheed I don’t normally get in to any back & forth conversations here but this time I’ll make an exception. I spent my entire campaign talking about Engineer’s release & unlike his campaign I talked about the release of the 1000s detained since 2019,” Omar said.
“The articles I’ve put here are not my views but they are a point of view. I may agree with parts, disagree with parts but they are an opinion. As for Rashid’s release, it’s a matter for the courts as it is in all such cases. I didn’t agree with Rashid’s detention in the first place & I don’t agree with it now but that’s neither here nor there because it shouldn’t be just about one man but about the 1000s in jail, including the anonymous ones outside J&K,” he added.
