Returning home after more than five years in prison, Member of Parliament Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, on Thursday said no one needs peace more than the people of Kashmir but they want it on their conditions and not on terms set by the Centre.
The Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) chief, who was released on interim jail from Tihar Jail on Wednesday, went down on his knees and touched his forehead on the road after exiting the airport.
"We want to tell (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi that no one needs peace more than we do. But that peace will come at our conditions, not yours. We do not want the peace of a graveyard but peace with dignity," he said.
Expressing gratitude to his supporters who had assembled outside the airport to welcome him, the Baramulla MP said he wants to convey to the people of Kashmir that they are not weak at all.
"The people of Kashmir will win as the people of Jammu and Kashmir are on the path of truth. The decisions taken by Narendra Modi on August 5, 2019, are totally unacceptable to us. Whether you send Engineer Rashid to Tihar or anywhere else, we will emerge victorious," he said, referring to the revocation of Article 370 by the Centre.
Flanked by his son and party leaders, Rashid asked his supporters not to lose courage as "the truth is with us".
"Nobody on earth, be it Narendra Modi, be it Amit Shah, can suppress our voice. The truth is with us and truth will be victorious. We are not begging. We want to be treated like humans.
"We want the Jammu and Kashmir issue, which has been pending since 1947 and has claimed 4-5 lakh lives, to be resolved so that peace returns to the whole sub-continent, no mother loses her children and nobody is imprisoned," the MP added.
Rashid, who was released from Tihar jail on Wednesday, said that for him, the power of being an MP or an MLA did not matter as "everything comes later on".
"First, the self-respect, rights and liberty of Kashmiris have to be protected, preserved and honoured," he said.
Asked about the NC and PDP targeting him, Rashid, a two-time legislator in the erstwhile assembly of J-K, said he has high regard for the leadership of both the parties "but I am fighting a fight for those people for whom they do not have the courage to fight".
"They were invisible for the last five years. That is why they lost in the parliamentary election. My fight is much bigger than what the PDP and NC are trying today," Rashid said.
He said he was not happy over Omar Abdullah's loss in the Lok Sabha polls, "but (I am satisfied) that the people of north Kashmir burst the bubble of Modi's 'naya' Kashmir".
"I salute the people of north Kashmir, the people of whole Kashmir," Rashid added.
The AIP supremo later left for Baramulla. He was scheduled to address a public gathering at Delina.
