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Onkar Singh in Srinagar
The vice-president of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party, Mehbooba Mufti, has alleged that Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah spent Rs 150 million on the coronation of his son Omar Abdulah as the president of National Conference on June 23.
Talking to rediff.com at her residence in Nawgam on the outskirts of Srinagar she said that Abdullah needs to 'explain to the people of the state where the money came from'.
"What could have been a simple ceremony has been turned into a show of extravaganza," Mufti said. "He used government machinery to bring the delegates from various parts of the state and put them in hotels and gave lavish wazwan to keep them in happy frame of mind till the ceremony was over," she alleged.
Javed Mir, acting president of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, who was detained by the Jammu and Kashmir police a day before the ceremony, said Abdullah had used 'brute police force' to stifle his democratic right to demonstrate against the coronation ceremony.
"This is not the first time that he has done this to us. Our chairman Yasin Malik has been languishing in jail for no fault of his," Mir alleged.
Chairman of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference Abdul Gani Bhat said, "Since Kashmir does not have a sky of its own therefore the rise or setting of 'son' does not matter at all."
He also alleged that the J&K government was misusing Prevention of Terrorism Act to harass the workers of his party.
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