PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday stated that the Centre is having negotiations with terrorists in the northeast while labelling regular residents in Jammu and Kashmir as militants, news agency PTI reported. Speaking at a function at Bijbehara in Anantnag district, Mufti stated: "We will not surrender, we will not raise the white flag. If you talk to us with dignity, we will respond with respect. However, if you talk through batons like you did in Bafliaz, it will not work."
The PDP president was speaking to a group of party members and supporters at the tomb of her father, PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, on the eighth anniversary of his death.
While the Centre was having discussions with terrorists in the Northeast, Mehbooba Mufti said, it had labelled ordinary residents in Jammu and Kashmir as militants.
"There (in the northeast) you talk to militants while in Jammu and Kashmir you have branded ordinary people as militants. You have filled the jails by carrying out (indiscriminate) arrests. The Enforcement Directorate, NIA, SIA raids .... does anyone treat their own people like this?" she asked.
The former chief minister stated that the Centre should learn from her late father's strategy to dealing with separatists.
"Learn something from Mufti sahib ... he tried to connect the hearts of people. He gave a way to separatists also so that they can live within this country with dignity. Mufti never said a wrong thing.... he always held on to one flag only.. but he only said the people of Jammu and kashmir want peace with dignity," she added.
The return to the PDP of party co-founder Muzaffar Hussain Baig and his wife Safina Baig, who is chairman of the District Development Council Baramulla, was the focus of the ceremony.
In his presentation to the gathering, Baig stated that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the first person to speak about the healing touch policy following the outbreak of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.
"As far as Mufti's politics is concerned, he was the first Muslim home minister of India. Till date no other Muslim has been made Home minister of the country. He was the first person who talked about healing touch after the eruption of militancy ... he said the militants were our own children who are being misled by another country," he was quoted by PTI in its report.
According to Baig, the PDP founder delivered a message of unity, rising above diverse societal divides.
"He gave a message of harmony, rising above the urban-rural divide, the Pahari-Gujjar differences or the Hindu-Muslim divide. I will pray to Allah to have mercy on all of us and grant us a life of dignity," he added.
Baigs' comeback to the PDP is significant since it comes fewer than four months before the Lok Sabha elections.
Baig gave fatiha (special prayers) to Sayeed's mausoleum in Bijbhera, a district in south Kashmir.
Baig, a co-founder of the PDP in the late 1990s, became a patron of the party when Sayeed died in 2016.
Baig, a former deputy chief minister, left the party in 2020 and was expected to join Sajad Lone's People's Conference.
While Baig's wife, Safina, has joined Lone's party, the former Lok Sabha member from Baramulla is yet to make a public declaration regarding his political future.