Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti yesterday said aligning with the Bharatiya Janata Party for government formation in the state by her father was not a bigger decision than the one taken by late Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah who chose to support accession to India in 1947.
She also said her government has no plans to set up a Sainik colony for non-state subject ex-servicemen.
Mufti was responding to criticism against her government and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) by the National Conference working president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah.
Mufti and her late father, Mufti Mohamed Sayeed, have come under constant criticism from the NC for what it calls “aligning with the rightwing Hindu party for government formation in the state.”
“Aligning with the BJP for government formation was not a bigger decision than the one taken by the tallest leader of Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah, who supported accession of the only Muslim majority state with India in 1947,” the chief minister said.
Replying to criticism on setting up exclusive colonies for migrant Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, the chief minister said: “We are committed to the dignified return of Kashmiri Pandits.
“For this, we are setting up transit accommodation which would be a composite facility and not an exclusive one. For this, places would be identified. Fifty percent of this accommodation would be given to Kashmiri Pandits while the rest would be provided to people belonging to other communities.
“If the political workers who have shifted from villages to Srinagar city are not ready to go back to their native places, how can you expect Kashmiri Pandits to go back to their native place at this point of time?
“Once the situation is conducive, only then can they go back to their native places,” she said.
On the alleged setting up of a Sainik (Ex-servicemen) colony in the Valley, the chief minister said: “The state government has no plans to set up a Sainik colony for non-state subject ex-servicemen. The Sainik Board came into being in 1965 and in 1975 a Sainik colony was inaugurated in Jammu city by then chief minister, Sheikh Abdullah.
“In the recent past, many meetings of the Sainik Board were conducted following requests that one such colony should be established in the Valley.
“But, up to this moment, no land, whatsoever, has been identified for this purpose. This issue is being exploited by some people for their own interests.”
There has been growing opposition in the state to allotting land for a Sainik colony, and separatist leaders called for protests against the move earlier this week.
Mufti also criticised the national media, especially the television channels, for what she called, “demonising the Kashmiri youth” saying that positive things were never reported in these channels.
She also blamed the television channels for “giving a communal colour to the National Institute of Technology (NIT) agitation in the Valley.”
She asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the mandate of the people and he should engage in a dialogue with Pakistan that would ultimately result in peace in Jammu and Kashmir.
“As and when cross border firing takes place in the state, it is the people of the Jammu region who face the brunt of those incidents,” she added.
Earlier, the opposition NC and Congress walked out of the assembly to protest against the lack of adequate relief for the victims of the 2014 floods.
Raising slogans against alleged failure of the state government to help the victims of unprecedented floods of September 2014, members of NC and the Congress party raised slogans. 
In another development, senior police and army officers denied that a Hizbul Mujahideen commander had surrendered yesterday.
Denying earlier reports that Tariq Pandit, a close associate of Burhan Wani, the most wanted Hizbul commander in south Kashmir, had surrendered, Colonel N N Joshi, the Srinagar-based defence spokesman, told reporters here: “Reports of Tariq’s surrender are absolutely baseless.”
Earlier some senior police officers and even defence sources had individually confirmed to media that Tariq Pandit, a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen had surrendered before the security forces.