Apni Party leader says NC demonises investment to Kashmir as attack on identity

Srinagar, May 6 (IANS) Senior leader of J&K Apni Party, Ghulam Hassan Mir said on Monday that the National Conference (NC) leaders have even ‘demonised’ investment coming to Kashmir by saying that everything would be lost if investment comes to this place.

Talking to reporters here, Mir said, “The world looks out to investment for its industry, employment, tourism and infrastructure development, but in Kashmir, the NC leaders are telling people if the investment comes to Kashmir, people will lose their identity."

Mir said, "Does poverty, unemployment, reporting to police stations by our youth and facing violence and its fallout represent the real identity of Kashmiris in the eyes of the NC leaders?”

He said the NC boycotted the Panchayat elections and then said it was a mistake. It is a typical example of a lawyer who says that he now remembers a legal point that would have won him a case in the court that he had already lost.

“The BJP, according to NC leaders, does not even exist in Kashmir. If the BJP does not exist in Kashmir then why are they worried about the BJP supporting any other party in Kashmir Lok Sabha polls?” he wondered.

The senior Apni Party leader said that the NC is attributing the spread of free education to its founder late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.

“Why don’t they say that free education was started in J&K by Maharaja Hari Singh who made school-going by children compulsory?

“Since sending your child to school for free education was compulsory that is why Kashmiris would call government schools in Maharaja’s time as ‘Jabri Schools’ (Forced education)”, he said.

He regretted the NC’s standard practice of calling every Kashmiri a BJP supporter or an Indian agent if he/she opposes the NC’s right to power.