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Drawing parallels between mass protests in Egypt and the summer unrest in Kashmir, People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday stated, "Global developments have always had an impact on Kashmir".
"We congratulate the people of Egypt for their achievement, but they had one advantage; the army was on their side and it protected the people there," she told a press conference.
The PDP president said, "People of Egypt fought for democracy while the people in Kashmir were fighting in spite of democracy'.
"We also had a struggle for justice in Kashmir; the recent being the over four-month long summer turmoil, but the leadership here demonised thousands of youth and others by first calling them Lashkar-e-Tayiba agents, then paid agents, and now they are being called drug addicts," she said.
"The political class in the country had failed to respond adequately to the transition in Kashmir," she alleged.
"In the wake of 9/11 attacks, the people of Kashmir joined the global abhorrence of violence and this has been admitted by the authorities who accept that cases of infiltration and militancy have gone down. After 2002, people participated in elections and peaceful street protests, but the response from the leadership has not been positive. Therefore, it is not possible to predict the impact of Egypt's developments on Kashmir," said the PDP leader.
Reacting to Mufti's comments, the ruling National Conference on Saturday expressed 'anguish and dismay on the opposition PDP equating the Egypt uprising with last year's summer unrest in Kashmir and wanting democracy to take a back seat and the army to take over'.
State Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather and Rural Development Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar claimed that the PDP chief's comments 'smack of sheer frustration and desperation because her lust for power has so enormously overwhelmed her that she mindlessly wants the people of Jammu and Kashmir to somehow replace the present dispensation even if it is at the cost of handing over the state to the army'.
In a joint statement, Rather and Sagar said, "PDP and its leadership have always indulged in double speak and deceitful methods to grab power by bartering the interests of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and thwarting the process of democracy in their selfish motive of somehow getting hold of power in the state".