CM Mufti lashes out at media
TV channels are branding J&K youths as protesters:
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday alleged that a section of national media particularly the TV channels are painting all Kashmiri youth with same brush while reporting on the stone-pelting incidents in the Valley. She alleged that by doing that they are spreading hatred against the people of Kashmir.
“The national media is portraying and branding all Kashmiri youths as stone-pelters. I request them to stop it and also not to show such discussion on television that develop hatred against the people of Jammu and Kashmir throughout the country,” she said while speaking to reporters on the reopening of the government offices in summer capital Srinagar following the bi-annual ‘Durbar Move’. She asserted, “Most of the youth don’t pelt stones. Only few do it and not all.”
Meanwhile, fresh student protests have been reported from several area of the Valley including Tral and Newa in Pulwama district, Budgam in Budgam district, Sopore in Baramulla district and Langaet in Kupwara district. In subsequent clashes between protesting students and the police several people were injured, reports said.
Mufti said that instead of seeing every Kashmiri as a stone-pelter, the nation should try to know how the youths of the Valley have won laurels in every sphere of life. “If all they had done was sloganeering and hurling stones, so many of our children would not have achieved what they actually did in recently held examinations,” she said.
She reiterated, “Our youth perform very well in each and every competitive examination held at national level. They have the potential to prove their metal in rest of the country.”
She said that all the sections of society including media have to play their part in restoring peace and normalcy in the Valley. She evaded answering a question about her recent assertion that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was the ‘only hope’ left as he alone could resolve the complex issue of Kashmir and take its people out of the quagmire.