JOIN USIn an attempt to de-escalate the current unrest, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday distanced herself from the Burhan Wani encounter.
“What I heard from the police and the army was they only knew that there were three militants inside the house. But they (security forces) did not know who they were,” she told reporters here, adding it isn’t possible for a chief minister to know everything about every encounter. Mehbooba, who also holds home portfolio, claimed that had the security forces known about Wani’s presence inside the house in Kokernag area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, it would have been possible to keep the situation “from turning to what it is today”.
The chief minister also defended her government in dealing with the situation post Burhan killing.
“Our government did not get enough time to make arrangements to contain the situation, like the previous government got when Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013.
We knew nothing and came to know suddenly. But, despite that, we tried to impose curfew so that children did not come out,” Mehbooba said.
On the use of pellet guns, she said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently said that the government would seriously rethink its use as a crowd-control measure.