All-party delegation from J-K should visit jails where Kashmiri prisoners languishing: Mehbooba to Omar Abdullah

Srinagar, Aug 25 (PTI) PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Monday urged Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to take an all-party delegation to different jails across the county where prisoners from the Union territory were lodged to check their plight.

Abdullah should also raise the issue of these prisoners with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, she demanded.

"Omar should take an all-party delegation, we will also want to be a part of that, to different jails where the prisoners from Jammu and Kashmir are lodged and check their plight," the former chief minister said here on the sidelines of a protest by her party against the government.

She said if Abdullah has any problems with taking an all-party delegation, then he should take a team of his ministers to visit those jails.

"I want to tell Omar that we are in opposition and cannot do anything. But you can. I swear this is not politics, but about those in jails," Mehbooba said.

She also urged Abdullah to meet Shah and raise the issue with him.

"Tell him (Shah) to get those prisoners languishing in the jails outside J-K to the jails in J-K," she added.

"Shabir Shah and Amir Jamaat-e-Islami have serious illness.They are senior people but even their families faced difficulties. What about others, some of them have still not been convicted," she added.

Earlier, police foiled the party's protest march from the party headquarters near the Sher-e-Kashmir Park here.

A posse of police stopped the protestors and did not allow them to move ahead.

Mehbooba said the party wanted to raise the issue peacefully but were stopped.

She said the way the police stopped them, had the police and intelligence agencies shown this zeal in arresting those involved in the Pahalgam attack, war would not have started with Pakistan.

This is not a NC-PDP fight. This is about people. This is not politics. This is an issue concerning humanity, she added. PTI SSB DV DV