Srinagar: In the wake of former Army chief VK Singh`s remarks, PDP on Wednesday said that the Centre should use it as an opportunity and change its policy towards the state by ushering in credibility in the system.
"The Centre should use this opportunity to change its policy towards Jammu and Kashmir and not treat it only from security angle," PDP president Mehbooba Mufti told reporters here.
Mehbooba said former Army chief VK Singh`s claim that several ministers were paid to buy loyalties since Independence was an insult to the people of Kashmir.
"The way to our hearts does not pass through middlemen, bribes, subsidies and economic packages. Winning hearts in present circumstances would look too ambitious but a modest beginning could be made to build some credibility in the system by taking some visible measures," she said.
National political parties should find ways and means to assure the people of the state that their vote is sacrosanct and will not be manipulated, the PDP president said.
"People of the state be reassured that their vote will be treated as sacrosanct and it would not be managed to unseat one party or install another."
"The security or political establishment of the country should stay away from playing patrons or promoting favourites in the name of national interest," she said.
Mufti said the revelations should be investigated through a credible institution.
She said the revelations made in the report on the Army payments in Kashmir has not come as a surprise to people of the state but has shaken "whatever faith they had been able to retain in the democratic system of the country".
"These revelations might be sensational, on their face these are only a confirmation of what an ordinary citizen of the state always held as a belief that everything in the state is manoeuvred and remote controlled by powers outside the system," she added.
The PDP president also said that the response from various quarters in the country to the report was "shocking".
"No one in the discourse has disapproved of these methods or denied their existence but justified them in the national interest and are upset only on their becoming a public knowledge," she said.
The PDP president also accused ruling National Conference of trying to use the expose as a "fig leaf to cover its atrocities in 2010 unrest".
"It was this government that by its own admission investigated those cases and arrested thousands of youth. Most of them are still facing police cases. Those who were gunned down by police and security forces were dubbed as criminals, anti nationals, drug addicts and paid agents. Now the ruling party is singing a different tune," she said.
Mehbooba said the government must withdraw all the cases relating to 2010 protests and tender an apology to them and the families of those killed.
PTI
