The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said that Pakistan’s decision to appoint Mushaal Hussein Mullick as a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on human rights. was “an indication of a sabotage plan in Kashmir”. Ms. Mullick is the wife of jailed Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik.
“Pakistan’s latest move to appoint Ms. Mullick as the Human Rights Minister, hailed by certain Kashmiri leaders, is an indication to slate the Kashmir sabotage plan. But they forget that New Delhi is a New Delhi of New India, which will not only fail all their attempts but teach them a lesson on their soil if need arises,” senior BJP leader Devender Singh Rana said in Jammu.
Ms. Mullick, who was appointed to Pakistan’s interim cabinet, is a graduate of the London School of Economics. She married Mr. Malik in 2009. The JKLF leader was sentenced to life imprisonment by a National Investigation Agency court in 2022, and is facing trial in multiple other cases.
Meanwhile, the JKLF, banned by the Centre in 2019, said in an online statement, “Ms. Mullick is wife of JKLF chairman Mohammed Yasin Malik. She is respectable to us, but she is not a member of the JKLF. She had nothing to do with the JKLF or Yasin Malik’s ideology so she can not represent Yasin Malik politically at any forum.”
‘Transformed Kashmir’
Without naming any Kashmiri leader, the BJP’s Mr. Rana said that Kashmir’s politics over the last seven decades has thrived on conflict, disorder and mayhem. He claimed that a transformed Kashmir has instilled new life and new hope for Kashmiris, and has cast a spell of doom on certain political players of J&K and their patrons across the border.
“Around 1.80 crore tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir last year and two crore are expected this year in the aftermath of normalcy dawning, with shutdown and stone pelting culture becoming a nightmare of the past,” Mr. Rana said. “Isn’t it a parameter of normalcy?” he added.
‘Sinister design’
He said that the false propaganda of Pakistan and rejected Kashmiri political players was a sinister design to deprive the people of Kashmir of their legitimate right to live peacefully and pursue their economic activities, which appeared to be a distant dream a few years ago.
“The Valley-based so-called mainstream political class has a vested interest in boiling Kashmir, to remain glued to power. On the one side, they had been assuring the Delhi power corridors about working towards ending the unrest in the Valley and on the other hand they were exploiting religious and separatist sentiments back home,” Mr. Rana claimed.
By playing a double game, politicians like Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party, and others, have neither done any good to the people of Kashmir nor to New Delhi, he said.
“These rejected politicians have been pursuing politics of convenience during the past over seven decades. They can abuse New Delhi from rooftops and belittle the pride of innocent Kashmiris at will,” he added.
