'Don't see all Kashmiris through security prism'

 Urging the Centre not to see all Kashmiris through the security prism, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday advocated initiating a dialogue with all shades of opinion to address anger and alienation in the state.

“I want to make an appeal to the Centre; don’t see all the people of Kashmir with the same eye. Kashmiris are peace-loving people and they don’t like violence,” she said while addressing a public gathering in Jammu.

“They (Kashmiris) are not stone-pelters. They want to open their shops, they want to send their wards to school, they want to come out of the fear psychosis they have been forced into,” Mehbooba said, adding: “I appeal to the Centre to take care of those majority of the peace-loving people in Kashmir and reach out to them. They are our own people and they are in trouble.”

The chief minister claimed that there were only 5% people, who were disturbing peace and instigating violence in the Valley. “Ninety-five per cent are innocent and they want to live in peace but are suffering due to a section of selfish creatures,” she added.

Mehbooba said the prevailing painful situation in Kashmir necessitates reaching out to all shades of the political opinion in the state and initiating substantive political and economic measures to revive and consolidate the peace and resolution process.
“The political leadership in New Delhi and within the state must jointly work to initiate the confidence-building measures to respond to the people’s innermost yearning for peace with dignity,” she said.

Maintaining that violence in any form only brings misery to the people and is not a means to seek resolution of problems, the chief minister reiterated that a solution can be found only through democratic and political means involving engagement and dialogue.

“Time has come for the state’s political leadership, cutting across the divide, to work towards retrieving the people of Jammu & Kashmir, with honour and dignity, from the political uncertainties they are engulfed in for the past seven decades,” she said and added that neither stones nor guns, either in the hands of militants or in the hands of security forces, would enable a peaceful solution to the Kashmir problem.