BJP used Kashmiri Pandits' pain as 'weapon' to garner votes across India, says Mehbooba Mufti

Srinagar: The BJP has used the Kashmiri Pandit community's pain and suffering as a "weapon" to garner votes across the country, People's Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti alleged on Tuesday.

The People's Democratic Party (PDP) president was speaking after visiting the residence of Roshan Lal, a Kashmiri Pandit and a photojournalist who died last month, in the city's Abi Guzar area.

"The BJP has not only used the Kashmiri Pandits as a vote bank but as a weapon as well. It has used the pain of the Kashmiri Pandits as a weapon and then used that weapon to garner the votes of others," she alleged.

"The Pandit community does not have so many votes themselves but the BJP used their pain and suffering and went around seeking votes in their name, without doing anything for them," she told reporters.

Mehbooba, a former chief minister of the erstwhile state, said since the BJP-led Centre began to directly administer Jammu and Kashmir, "even those Kashmiri Pandits who used to live here have left because the situation became such".

The PDP chief said Lal was a close friend of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and lived in the Valley despite the situation that is portrayed in some films, referring to The Kashmir Files.

"Kashmiris are defamed across the country, films are made about them. I think Lal living here amid brotherhood is the answer to those films. There was a huge rush of people to pay their condolences after Lal's death. This is the biggest example of brotherhood," she added.

Lal living in the Valley in a "very difficult situation" was a lesson for the country's Hindu community, Mehbooba said.

"What is happening in the country -- the way people from our community are lynched, killed, beaten up, our mosques and madrassas demolished, homes are demolished. The people of our country, our Hindu brethren, are secular. They don't believe in this, this is a lesson for them that Lal lived here in very difficult times and that Muslims and Hindus are ready to live here as they used to," she said.

Speaking on the return of the Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley, Mehbooba said the community does not need the help of any government.

"Our Kashmiri Pandit brothers and sisters living in Jammu or elsewhere in very difficult circumstances, I think they don't need help from anyone to settle here -- whether the government is of the BJP or Mehbooba Mufti or someone else. The people of Kashmir want the Kashmiri Pandits to return," she said.