Omar Abdullah broke his silence and said he has "no hesitation" in presenting himself before a judicial inquiry.
The row over the custodial death of a National Conference (NC) worker escalated today with Jammu and Kashmir assembly witnessing high drama and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah saying he is ready to appear before a judicial probe after opposition PDP levelled allegations against him.
Stung by the allegations in connection with the death of Sayeed Muhammad Yousuf last week, allegedly in police custody, Omar broke his silence and said he has "no hesitation" in presenting himself before a judicial inquiry.
Dismissing the PDP allegations as "baseless and wild", Omar said he was consulting his lawyers to respond in the form of defamation notice which will be taken to its "logical conclusion."
Talking to reporters, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti alleged that the needle of suspicion in the mysterious death was pointing at the chief minister, his father and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah and Minister of State for Home Nasir Aslam Wani.
Reacting to Omar's threat of defamation, Mehbooba said he is free to sue her and pressed for his resignation.
Ugly scenes were witnessed in the assembly which had to be adjourned thrice without any business being transacted after the speaker rejected an adjournment motion notice moved by PDP demanding a discussion on the incident.
During the chaos, an opposition member even hurled a pedestal fan towards the Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone while others uprooted mikes and tore papers. Some of them stood on their seats.
PDP MLA Iftikhar Hussain Ansari and Lone were also locked in a verbal duel during which they levelled charges of corruption against each other.
The speaker expressed regret over his remarks against Ansari and directed that they be expunged.
"I regret what happened in the beginning," he said.
Not satisfied with the speaker's statement, PDP members stormed the Well of the House and tore business papers.
In the midst of the opposition attack, ruling National Conference MLAs took to their feet and started shouting slogans against PDP.
Yousuf, a NC worker from south Kashmir's Anantnag district, died on September 29 allegedly in police custody after two fellow party workers had accused him of taking Rs1.18 crore from them for getting them berths in the Legislative Council.
In the assembly, the PDP MLAs also raised slogans demanding that the identity of those responsible for Yousuf's death be revealed.
Rejecting the allegations of PDP, Omar said he had full faith in the judicial inquiry and that facts will "speak for themselves."
"My silence is being used against me," he said.
"It has somewhow been suggested that I or colleagues of mine are involved in criminal activity to the extent that certain supposedly responsible political leaders have gone so far as to suggest that I could be possibly involved in a case of murder.
"All I will say is that I have absolute, total and complete faith in the process of judicial inquiry. I am awaiting very keenly the establishment of this commission," he said.
"I will answer whatever questions are put to me and I have no doubt that as a result of this judicial inquiry, the facts will speak for themselves and all the lies that I have been bombarded with will be shown what they are," he added.
Mehbooba has demanded resignation of the Chief Minister, Minister of State for Home Nasir Aslam Wani and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah claiming that a fair probe would not be possible if the trio continue to be in power.
Rejecting PDP allegations that he was in any way involved in the death of Yousuf, Omar said he remained silent about the incident so far as he was accused of prejudging an inquiry ordered by the government in an earlier case.
The chief minister said it was beyond his comprehension as to how the political leadership and certain sections of media were levelling allegations that the deceased had been tortured at his residence in the absence of a postmortem report.
Omar said in the absence of the postmortem report to level such "wild and unsubstantiated" allegations against him or any of his colleagues "is unfortunate".
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