SRINAGAR: Taking strong note of thrashing of voters by unidentified youth in North Kashmirs Sopore and Baramulla towns, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Friday said that action will be taken against anyone found trying to terrorize voters and the police have been instructed accordingly.
In his latest three tweets on social networking site, Omar wrote that the gangs moving around trying to terrorize those who voted will not be tolerated.
He further wrote that, can’t have freedom to choose not to vote without allowing people who want to vote a similar choice.
Meanwhile the ruling National Conference has blamed the separatist leadership for manhandling of voters in Baramulla and Sopore. In a harshly toned statement, the party spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu said, “This brazen, fascist assault on innocent fellow Kashmiris by goons and glorified hooligans in North Kashmir underlines everything that is wrong with separatist politics in the Valley.” He said that certain political quarters in the State had glorified anarchy, hooliganism and vandalism under the fig-leaf of the political sentiment.
“Those who parade elders in broad daylight, slap them and tear their clothes off cannot represent anything but anarchy and madness. The separatist leaders, either through their glorious statements or through their inglorious silence have given a certain amount of legitimacy to anarchy and vandalism in the Valley. Their condemnations are selective, if not quantitatively but certainly in terms of the stark qualitative contrast between condemnations to such acts committed by security forces and acts committed by such glorified goons”, Junaid Mattu said.
Demanding stern punishment to the culprits, Mattu said , “While they (separatists) have a right to appeal for an election boycott, citizens have an equally sacred right to defy that appeal and exercise their right to vote. How can you demand that your right to boycott should be respected when you do not respect the right of others to disagree with you and vote? Why this inherent hypocrisy?”
Junaid Mattu said that National Conference speaks up for the rights of the people of this State irrespective of their political ideologies or leanings.
“We condemn the brazen vigilante scanning of people by goons in Sopore and Baramulla and the subsequent physical assault and humiliation meted out to those who had voting marks on their fingers.”
Seeking equal social acceptance of those who vote and those who don’t, Junai said, “Every single citizen of J&K – those who vote as well as those who don’t vote – have equal rights to dignity and liberty. No power on earth will be allowed to victimize people of J&K based on their political leanings and ideologies.”
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