Srinagar: People’s Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti warned on Friday that demands for granting statehood to Jammu based on religion undermine the very foundation of Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India. Speaking at a press conference, the former Chief Minister asserted that recent actions by right-wing groups threaten to negate the historic decision of J&K’s leadership to reject the "two-nation theory" in favor of Mahatma Gandhi’s secular India.
Mufti strongly condemned the National Medical Commission's (NMC) decision to revoke permission for the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College, calling the move "dangerous and unfortunate." She alleged that the revocation was a targeted attempt to deny admission to Muslim students who had qualified via the NEET exam.
"A few right-wing Hindu groups started an agitation for a few days, prompting the National Medical Commission (NMC) to revoke the permission to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College," she said. Mufti further suggested a conspiracy involving the current administration: "Strangely, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said a day before that the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College should be closed and the next day the NMC revoked permission to the medical college. It proves that a nexus existed between the chief minister and the right-wing Hindu groups on this decision”.
The PDP chief expressed fear that Jammu and Kashmir is being treated as a "laboratory" for divisive experiments that could later be replicated across India. "I fear tomorrow some right-wing groups can raise the same demand for the cancellation of admission of our boys and girls in other institutions outside J&K," she stated.
She argued that granting statehood to Jammu on religious lines would invalidate the secular principles that brought the Muslim-majority region into the Indian Union. "Recent developments championed by right-wing Hindu groups like BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal and others have negated the decision of our leaders to have joined the Gandhian secular India by rejecting the two-nation theory of Mohammad Ali Jinnah," she added.
When asked about the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids in West Bengal, Mufti drew parallels with the situation in Kashmir. "When three chief ministers were locked up in J&K in 2019, no big political party in the rest of the country raised their voice, and now they are facing the same situation," she remarked. Expressing support for the West Bengal Chief Minister, she added, " I am sure that Mamata Banerjee is a tigress and she will face it boldly".
(Inputs from IANS)