Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
SRINAGAR—Worst fears of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti came true when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned her mother Gulshan Nazir shortly after her party refused to meet the Delimitation Commission
ED issued summons to Gulshan in a money laundering case and asked her to appear before its Srinagar office on July 14.
PDP was the only major party to stay away from the commission. However, its allies and PAGD members National Conference and CPIM met the Commission in Srinagar on Tuesday.
Mehbooba posted the ED notice on her Twitter handle. According to the notice, her mother has been asked to appear before the ED office at Srinagar.
“On the day PDP chose not to meet Delimitation Commission, ED sent a summon to my mother to appear in person for unknown charges. In its attempt to intimidate political opponents, GOI (Government of India) doesn’t even spare senior citizens. Agencies like NIA (National Investigation Agency) and ED are now its tools to settle scores,” she tweeted.
Earlier, in a letter to the Commission, PDP said it has decided to stay away from the process because the commission lacks constitutional and legal mandate.
In a two-page letter written to Ranjana Desai, a retired Supreme Court judge heading the panel, general secretary of the party Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura said the PDP has decided to stay away from the delimitation process and not be part of “some exercise, the outcome which is widely believed to be pre-planned and which may further hurt the interests of our people.”
The letter highlighted the August 5, 2019 revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories by the Centre.
PDP said the people of Jammu and Kashmir have been “robbed of their legitimate constitutional and democratic rights” by the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution “illegally and unconstitutionally.”
“We are of the considered opinion that the Delimitation Commission lacks the constitutional and legal mandate in the first place, and its very existence and objectives have left every ordinary resident of J&K with many questions,” PDP said in the letter.
In May, Mehbooba appeared before the Enforcement Directorate at Srinagar, where she was questioned for five hours. The former chief minister had said she was forced to sign a statement by the ED though she had insisted that she would do it only in front of her lawyers.
In December 2020, Mehbooba wrote a letter to the Director of the ED, claiming that the agency summoned various persons from Kashmir related to her.
“The only common thread connecting these persons appears to be that they are all acquainted with me, my family, or my politics in one way or another. Thus, the questioning of these persons is also focused on me, my personal, political, and financial affairs, my late father’s grave and memorial, my sister’s finances, home constructions, my brother’s finances, and personal affairs, etc.,” she wrote.
Mehbooba was among three former chief ministers, including Omar Abdullah and Farooq Abdullah, detained under Public Safety Act after the Centre abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
She was released in October 2020. However, she has vowed to fight for the restoration of special status. She is one of the founding members of the Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a five-party conglomerate formed to fight for the restoration of Article 370.
