Srinagar, Oct 23 (UNI) Days after the deadliest terror attack on civilians in Kashmir, former Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday that reconciliation between India and Pakistan is the only way to prevent such attacks in the future.
She emphasized that reconciliation should happen between the two countries as it happened during the tenure of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir are caught in the enmity between the two countries. The lives of the people of Jammu and Kashmir—their affairs, their property—everything is being destroyed because the two countries are fighting each other. And Jammu and Kashmir is becoming the victim of this, in which our poor workers from outside have also become the victims,” she told reporters in Budgam after visiting the family of Dr. Shahnawaz Ahmed Dar, one of seven employees of an infrastructure company shot dead by militants in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district on Sunday evening.
Mufti said the doctor, who had served so many people, also became a victim of this ongoing conflict.
She urged India and Pakistan to engage in dialogue to resolve their issues.
“There is no way forward until these two countries sit together with understanding and start reconciliation, as happened during Vajpayee ji’s time. That path needs to be adopted,” she said. “Until then, God forbid, the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the people of the country will continue to face this calamity.”
Mufti reiterated that as long as animosity exists between the two countries, the people of Jammu and Kashmir will suffer.
“Every person in Jammu and Kashmir—not just Mehbooba Mufti—wants to be free from this war. These two countries should sit together and talk so that Jammu and Kashmir can escape this bloodshed,” she said.
