5% OF PEOPLE GIVING BAD NAME TO KASHMIRIS, SAYS MEHBOOBA

JAMMU: In her first visit to Jammu since trouble began in the Valley on July 8, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said Kashmiris are peace-loving people and all of them should not be judged with the same yardstick.

“It’s only 5% of the entire community who is giving a bad name for the rest of Kashmiris. Majority of them want to go school, go to work and want to come out of the fear psychosis they have been forced into. I urge the government of India to take care those 95% Kashmiris and reach out to them. They are our own people and they are in problem.”

She said that some people could not digest the various public welfare initiatives taken up by the PDP-BJP coalition government and were hell-bent to destabilize the government. “But they failed to provoke the masses,” Mehbooba said after inaugurating biggest sewage treatment plant at Bagwati Nagar, Jammu on Monday.

Noting that people have the right to protest, Mehbooba said: “But then you snatch weapons inside police stations, pelt stones, throw petrol bombs, enter CRPF camps… These mischievous people used youth as their shield in curfew restrictions, resulting in loss of 60 lives, mostly youth. Thousands were injured and majority of them were security personnel. Security forces have shown maximum restraint.”

She congratulated the people of Jammu, especially Hindus, for not succumbing to provocations in the past few weeks.