Shadow Correspondent
Srinagar, july 21:
With no member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Parliament, its president and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has urged the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to raise the issues of Muslims in the Monsoon session, which began today.
Mehbooba has written a letter to Rahul, hoping that the Opposition, especially the INDIA bloc, raises the growing concern of Muslim “victimisation” across the country. She said that under the pretext of targeting “Bangladeshis” and “Rohingyas,” Muslims are being pushed into increasingly desperate situations.
“Disturbing media reports have even suggested that some were forced into the sea in attempts to expel them from India. As you rightly highlighted during your visit to Assam, the large-scale demolition of thousands of Muslim homes is deeply troubling,” she said.
Commenting on the SIR being conducted in Bihar, Mehbooba said it appears to be yet another systematic effort to “dispossess, disempower, and ultimately disenfranchise” Muslims, effectively erasing their presence both symbolically and literally.
“The Muslims who chose to remain in India during Partition did so because of the faith they had in the secular leadership of the Congress Party from Mahatma Gandhi to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, as the bearer of that legacy, the responsibility falls on your shoulders to uphold and defend the secular and democratic values enshrined in our Constitution,” she said.
Mehbooba said that the whole nation expresses outrage when Hindu minorities in Pakistan or Bangladesh are targeted, but “when Muslims are targeted within our own country there is an unsettling silence, a fear that prevents many from speaking up.”
Mehbooba said that she feels extremely “helpless at times” despite being a politician from the only Muslim majority regions which join secular India. “Placing great hope in your leadership, l urge you to continue speaking up for a minority that is being steadily marginalised and pushed to the fringes of Indian society,” she said.
The Monsoon Session began today, and it will conclude on August 21. Jammu and Kashmir has five elected MPs in the parliament- two MPs from BJP were elected from Jammu, while three National Conference (NC) candidates were elected from the Kashmir region. The PDP, which had two nominated MPs in Rajya Sabha from 2014 to 2020, could not win a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Jammu and Kashmir. Mehbooba herself lost from the Anantnag-Rajouri seat against NC’s Mian Altaf.
