Srinagar, Jan 9: Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said the closure of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College appeared to be pre-planned, warning that the decision has set a dangerous precedent and could have far-reaching consequences.
Talking to reporters, Mehbooba Mufti said the sequence of events surrounding the derecognition of the medical college raised serious questions. “One evening Omar Abdullah said the college should be closed, and the very next day it was shut. This does not look coincidental,” she said, adding that such actions create fear and uncertainty.
She cautioned that the move could encourage extremist elements elsewhere in the country. Mehbooba said tomorrow, some right-wing organisation might protest in any part of India and demand the removal of Muslim students from Kashmir. “This will become a pattern. Jammu and Kashmir is being used as an experiment, and whatever is tried here is later repeated in other parts of the country,” she said.
Drawing parallels with central agency actions, she said enforcement measures such as ED raids were first intensified in Kashmir and later expanded across the country. Referring to recent developments in West Bengal, Mehbooba said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was resisting such pressure. “Mamata Banerjee is a tigress and she is standing up,” she said.
Mehbooba Mufti also alleged that an environment was being deliberately created in Jammu to divide people on religious lines. She warned that if Jammu and Kashmir were divided on the basis of religion, it would effectively validate the two-nation theory propounded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
“Our leadership rejected the two-nation theory, believing this to be Gandhi’s India. If today we start dividing states on religious lines, then it would mean Jinnah was right,” she said.
She urged the leadership to introspect and refrain from decisions that could deepen social divisions and undermine the pluralistic foundations of the country.
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