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| CURRENT AFFAIRS |
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INTERVIEW |
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‘No state government employee would dare go against the CM’
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed tells Riyaz Wani why her party believes that state inquiry into Haji Yusuf’s death is a cover up
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Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed
Photo: Shailendra Pandey |
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Why do you think the magisterial inquiry that exonerates Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Haji Yusuf’s death is a cover up?
The inquiry was a farce. This was destined to happen. It was a case of an official holding an inquiry against his own boss. The outcome could not have been different.
Do you think findings of magisterial inquiry will affect the Bedi Commission report?
We don’t see much store by Bedi Commission. The Commission is probing a crime involving the Chief Minister. The government is responsibile to furnish evidence to nail him. The commission is dependent on the state police and doctors for the evidence and no state government employee would dare go against the CM.
Does PDP want CBI inquiry into the issue?
No, our stand was that since the Chief Minister and his aides were involved in the crime, they should have stepped down and let the law take its course. This didn’t happen; he stuck to his chair. Bedi Commission has rejected the plea to cross-examine the Chief Minister’s and his aides. This is a legal question. We can’t say anything about this.
PDP says that the handling of Haji Yusuf case is in sharp contrast to the punishment melted out to the doctors, advocates, and others who had handled the Shopian double murder where female corpses were shown as having been washed away in ankle deep water. Can you elaborate?
Yes, in the Shopian case, doctors and policemen charged with mishandling the case were severely punished, even when there was no sufficient proof against them. But here despite a murder taking place, with the involvement of CM and his aides, and under circumstances that were suspicious from the word go, nobody’s skin has been touched.
What makes you believe that the inquiry officials and the doctors who conducted post-mortem of Yusuf were given awards and promoted?
This is for everybody to see. The official who conducted the inquiry was promoted as District Development Commissioner of Budgam. The doctors involved in the inquiry have similarly been given plum postings. The inquiry floated the heart attack theory about Yusuf’s death. They have not probed the all-important question of what precipitated the conditions for heart attack. After all, when Yusuf went into CM’s house he was hale and hearty. But soon after coming out, he started vomiting blood.
There is a parallel Crime Branch probe which has established that Yusuf took money from his colleagues in lieu of the promise to give them berths in legislative council and the state council of ministers.
I think these reports are part of an elaborate cover-up. I believe the case has now moved beyond corruption. The person in question is dead, and the case is now about his murder. Yusuf was called by CM to his residence, questioned there and then handed over to the police without registering of an FIR. Yusuf died soon after. In fact, till date there is no FIR in the case. This does not happen elsewhere in the country. Laws that are applied to other parts of country do not apply here.
Riyaz Wani is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka.
riyaz@tehelka.com
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