PDP delegate defers meet with detained Mehbooba Mufti

Srinagar: A 10-member delegation of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which was to visit its incarcerated president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti at a detention centre on Monday has deferred the meeting.

The sources said that the meeting was postponed as the dominant view in the party is that it could be “exploited” by the authorities as a sign of return of normalcy in the Valley.

The governor’s administration had granted permission for the meeting on Sunday evening. Earlier during that day, a National Conference (NC) delegation has met its president Farooq Abdullah and his son and party vice-president Omar Abdullah.

The PDP delegation that was to meet Ms Mufti would have been led by the party’s general secretary Ved Mahajan. PDP spokesperson Firdous Tak had said the party had requested Governor Satya Pal Malik to allow the meeting and “we have been conveyed that the permission has been granted”.

Meanwhile, PDP general secretary and former legislator Surinder Choudhary alleged that decision of visiting its detained leader Ms Mufti was taken by some “land grabbers and land mafia” within the party. “They are not the well wishers of the party and have, in fact, destroyed its base in Jammu,” Choudhary told reporters in the winter capital.  

He added, “I do not know where the (PDP) meeting took place and who took this decision. The PDP is not the National Conference’s ‘B team’ to follow its footsteps”.

The NC’s second-rung leaders led by provincial president for Jammu region, Davinder Singh Rana, had met SeniorAbdullah at his Gupkar Road residence here which was declared a subsidiary jail after the NC president was formally detained under J&K’s stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) on September 16. NC’s sitting MPs Hasnain Masoodi and Muhammad Akbar Lone were also part of the delegation.

The delegation had earlier visited Omar Abdullah, who is detained at government-owned Hari Nivas guesthouse on the foothills of Zabarwan here, and discussed the J&K situation and related issues with him for a little over 30 minutes.

Mr. Rana had after meeting him said that for any political process to begin, the leaders of the party need to be released.