Centre wants to keep Kashmir pot boiling for votes: Mehbooba Mufti

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said the Centre wants to keep the pot boiling in Jammu and Kashmir to garner more votes in elections.

Her remarks come in the wake of the dismissal of three employees by the Jammu and Kashmir government for their alleged involvement in anti-national activities and the attaching of properties of militants.

“In the name of fighting militancy, govt employees are dismissed arbitrarily & houses attached without giving the families any chance to avail the due legal course. This is collective punishment for innocent families & upends their lives,” Mufti wrote on Twitter.

The former chief minister said the “muscular iron fisted policy” may appeal to the BJP vote bank in the country, but in Jammu and Kashmir, "it is not only wreaking lives but further alienating people here from rest of the country”.

“GOI wants to keep the Kashmir pot boiling to use it in elections to garner votes,” she added.

In its ongoing action against terrorists operating from Pakistan, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday attached a property of The Resistance Front (TRF) operative Basit Ahmad Reshi in Baramulla district.

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The action follows the sealing of a Srinagar-based property of the founder and self-styled chief commander of the Al-Umar Mujahideen, Mushtaq Zargar alias 'Latram', on Thursday. Reshi, a "listed terrorist" under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), has been operating from Pakistan after his exfiltration there. He has been found funding terror activities and acts in the Kashmir Valley, an NIA spokesperson had said.

Besides three government employees, including a schoolteacher recently arrested for allegedly carrying out several blasts, were dismissed from service for their alleged involvement in anti-national activities, an official said.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration ordered the dismissal of government middle school teacher Arif Sheikh of Reasi, Junior Engineer (Public Works department) Manzoor Ahmad Itoo of Bandipora and Syed Saleem Andrabi of Kupwara, an orderly in the Social Welfare department, under Article 311 of the Constitution, a government spokesperson said.

Article 311 of the Constitution provides for dismissal of a person employed in civil capacities under the Union or a State.