Taking serious note of the recent arrest of some Kashmiri students on the charges of celebrating the victory of the Pakistan team against India in the T-20 cricket, Peoples Conference (PC) President Sajad Lone on Monday asserted that his party will do everything in its power to protect a common Kashmiri from being “victimized” but this could be done without taking confrontational postures with the government.

In a statement after the meeting of the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the PC in Srinagar, Lone said; “The role of today’s leadership is to save and protect the people of Kashmir. We cannot allow our young people to go to jail and be booked under stringent cases. We need to do everything to shield the people from adverse situations”.

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Lone called said that while focusing on protecting Kashmiris, we will have to shun confrontational postures. JKPC has a million disagreements with the ruling regime and its leadership. “Our ideological differences with the union government are steep and irreconcilable.

However, the harsh reality is that they wield unbridled powers to further erode and hurt the interest of Kashmir.

The irrational and theatrical provocations of a section of our leadership are only becoming a catalyst for new changes and erosions. He maintained that the Peoples Conference will not let the ideological difference with the union government become a catalyst for further erosion and an impediment towards the re-empowerment of the people of J&K”.

“We on our part have to create an enabling environment for deliverance by Delhi. We are in a hurry that democracy is restored; we are in a hurry that whatever has been taken away be restored. New Delhi is not in any hurry”, he emphasised.

Lone described the situation in J&K as “unambiguously extraordinary” and said people are in pain and there is helplessness all around. The process of disempowerment started on 5 August 2019 refuses to abate. Disempowerment has become a continuous process and is achieved incrementally with unfailing frequency.

“Rarely a day passes when there is not some sort of law aimed at belittling the Kashmiris, humiliating them and further disempowering them”. To compound the problems further there is an “alien administration” that has nothing in common with the people of J & K. Resolution of basic issues of day to day survival faced by masses are matters of prime luxury and a rarity, PC President said.

“The luxury to perform to pre-scripted theatres in Kashmir is long gone. It is time the leadership rose from its slumber and understood that every word that the leadership utters has a consequence for the people of Kashmir”, he added.