PDP condemns attack on Mehbooba's Delhi residence

Srinagar, Jul 28 (UNI) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has strongly condemned the attack by some groups on the official residence of the party president and MP Mehbooba Mufti at New Delhi yesterday.

''The Sangh Parivar cannot browbeat us by such cowardice acts and we will fight them tooth and nail,'' senior PDP leaders and former ministers Tariq Hameed Karra and Peer Mohammad Hussain said in a joint statement today.

They accused the Sangh Parivar of trying to divide people on communal lines for electoral purposes, both in Jammu and Kashmir and at the national level.

''India is threatened more by its own fascist forces represented by RSS and other members of its Parivar than any external elements,'' they said.

Cautioning that the Jammu situation could flare up dangerous communal and regional dissonance if not addressed effectively, the PDP leaders said that while the general public there deserved commendation for their exemplary conduct in difficult circumstances, the Sangh Parivar was trying to fuel the crisis through irresponsible utterances and reprehensible actions.

''The very social fabric of the state apart from its political composition can get severely endangered by the subversive games,'' they said.

The PDP leaders asserted that the Sangh Parivar cannot hold Kashmir to ransom by the provocative threats of economic blockades and forcible migration.

''While the people of Kashmir will never oblige the nefarious designs of Sangh Parivar by falling in to their communal trap, they will as well not allow their own interests to be subverted or compromised,'' they said and added that the time had come for the people of the State to rise against the Sangh Parivar and defeat their wicked designs.

Calling for immediately stopping the detention and harassment of Kashmiri students, traders and others particularly in the BJP-ruled states, the PDP leaders demanded that the respective governments must come out with the whereabouts of all the Kashmiris arrested in any of the states.

''If students pursuing studies or careers are rounded up with impunity, how can someone then advocate peace to them,'' they asked and urged the union Government to ensure that the innocent Kashmiri students and traders were not put to any trouble in any part of the country in the aftermath of the tragic blasts at Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

UNI BAS ASM PK RK1818