PDP criticises J&K govt over handling of unrest in Valley

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today criticised the state government for its handling of the situation during the past five months of unrest in the valley.

"The renewed turmoil that engulfed the state this year is not behind us. It continues to rage among the parents, families and the kith and kin of those who fell to the atrocities of trigger-happy government forces," PDP patron and former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said in a statement here.

Flaying the government for not reaching out to the families of the victims of the recent unrest, Sayeed said civil liberties have been curbed to an extent that Kashmir seems "off the map" of democracy.

"It seems the government is determined to only increase the scale of its draconian methods and atrocities," he said.

The most worrisome part of the scenario is the way the government has gone after the youth of Kashmir. What it has failed to do is to inspire hope among our younger generation, the statement quoted Sayeed as saying.

Horror stories of places like Pattan, Palhalan and in fact entire rural Kashmir where the behaviour of police and security forces indicates a total reversal of normalisation process that the state had witnessed before the present government, Sayeed said.

Greeting people on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha, he said, "I extend my full solidarity with them and those who are seeking justice for the excesses committed on them. The PDP will not let them be alone in their grim struggle."