Ban on Falah-e-Alam affiliated schools discriminatory: Sajad Lone

Kupwara: More than three dozen prominent NC workers from district Kupwara on Wednesday joined the Peoples Conference at its headquarters in Srinagar. The new entrants were welcomed by PC President Sajad Gani Lone. PC senior leaders and functionaries including Adv Bashir Ahmed Dar, Fayaz Mir, DDC Chairman Kupwara Irfan Panditpori, Spokesperson Adnan Ashraf Mir, Ashiq Hussain, Abdul Ahad Kashmiri, Kupwara Youth district president Mansoor Banday were also present on the occasion.
Among those who joined the party include ex-constituency incharge Kupwara Mushtaq Ah Khan, ex-Sarpanch Awoora Haji Habibullah Mir, Joint Block Secretary Farooq Ahmad Baba, Youth vice president Farooq Ahmed Sheikh, Ward member Farooq Ah Lone, ex ward member Abdul Gaffar Khan, senior workers Mohd Ashraf Bhat, Mohd Iqbal Khan, Ghulam Mohiuddin Dar, Bilal Ahmed, ex Sarpanch Mohd Aslam Khan, Capt. Mohd Inaam Khan, Capt. Habibullah Khan, Sanaullah Bhat, Jamsheed Khan, Abdul Rasheed Khan, Bashir Ah Khan, Mohd Yusuf Khan, Mohd ALtaf Khan, Abdul Qasim Badana, Ghulam Mohd Khan, Sajad Ahmed Khan, Deputy Sarpanch and Halqa President Awoora C Mohd Afzal Khan, Mohd Rustum Khan, Yar Mohd Khan, Ghulam Hassan Khan, Mohd Shafi, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, Youth Block President Allachizab Irshad Ah Malik, Ab Majeed Wani, Irshad Ahmed Mir, Ghulam Mohd Sheikh including others.
While speaking on the occasion PC President Sajad Gani Lone said that the woes of the common masses on the ground are mounting with each passing day and that the administration needs to go beyond the rhetoric and make sincere efforts to engage the people of J&K for a lasting solution to the present challenges.
‘’The situation is tense and there is palpable fear. There is a feeling of violence being pervasive. We have seen these phases in the past as well however, there is a certain aloofness with which the current administration is being identified. Their utterances are overtly muscular. They may unintentionally be weakening the resolve of the general masses by virtue of an administrative discourse that seems to be anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri. The rulers and the ruled would have to live on the same planet for a cohesive response to the challenges faced by the people of J&K, he added.
Sajad maintained that the worst thing that the administration can do is to go on pretending that everything is hunky dory since August 5, 2019.
‘’The biggest problem we are facing today is that it is a people-less fight. The administration needs to get off the high horse and talk to people who have been around for decades. The people of Kashmir who have fought and sacrificed their lives in the last 3 decades are nowhere. There is this belief that in order to be an expert on Kashmir, you have to be a non-Kashmiri. It has to change. In order to counter violence government must involve local stakeholders, who have been at the forefront of this fight in the last 3 decades’’, he added.
While responding to a question on BJP spokespeople remarks on the Prophet and Islam, Sajad said that the remarks made by BJP spokespeople are absolutely shameful and reprehensible.
‘’It is unfortunate that the BJP is sensitive to the criticism by the Arab countries while completely ignoring the sentiments of the Muslims living in India. It is matter of shame that the BJP apologised only when there was a diplomatic backlash from Muslim countries. Ideally in a democracy, the government should have voluntarily taken action against its spokespeople for hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslim citizens of this country. But it seems that the sensitivities of the Muslims of this country does not matter to the BJP.’’
On being asked about the ban of Falah-e-Aam affiliated schools Sajad said that the ban is discriminatory.
‘’Selectively cracking down on institutions which have religious affiliations is grossly unfair and unjust. The administration must understand that J&K is an overwhelmingly Muslim majority state. They cannot possibly ban every institution because they have a bias against the Muslims. It seems that they are intentionally targeting the Kashmiris for petty electoral gains in the rest of the country’’, he added.