Omar Abdullah raked up AFSPA issue to divert attention: PDP

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday alleged Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had raked up the AFSPA issue to divert attention from the death of a ruling National Conference worker in police custody last year.

"Omar took up the issue of AFSPA to divert attention from custodial killing of Mohammad Yousuf Shah," she said.

The National Conference worker died on September 30 last year in police custody after two fellow party workers accused him of taking Rs1.18 crore from them for getting them berths in the Legislative Council.

"He (Omar) was never really concerned about the revocation of AFSPA. He wanted that time period, that gap, when everybody started discussing AFSPA and not the death (of Shah)," she said.

Mehbooba said the chief minister succeeded in diverting the attention.

The PDP leader also claimed that a civilian killed in Sopore last week during a gun battle between police and militants did not die in the cross-fire.

"The family said no one came to save him. First, it was alleged he was a militant but then the statement was changed," Mehbooba said after meeting the family of Mehraj-ud-din, a shopkeeper who died on Saturday.

"He was nowhere in between. It was not that he was trapped in between, that is what his family said," the PDP chief said.