Sajad Lone slams police verification process, calls it “collective punishment”

STC NEWS DESK
JAMMU, FEBRUARY 19 (STC): Former Minister and Peoples Conference president Sajad Gani Lone has dubbed the police verification process as a “sword hanging over the necks” of Kashmiri youth.
Lone urged the Chief Minister to convey to New Delhi that Kashmiri youth are suffering because of this process. “At least please go and tell them that our children are suffering. They are suffering. They are our children. If we don’t speak for them in this Assembly, who will?” he asked.
Speaking in the Legislative Assembly during the Grants of Departments headed by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the JKPC Chief termed the verification process “collective punishment.”
“If a single person in your family has made a mistake, then 100, 200, 300, or even 400 young people belonging to that family are denied police verification,” he said.
Pointing towards BJP legislators, Lone appealed to them to use their influence to intervene in the matter. “In many cases, children are punished for the actions of a person even before they were born. Are they not Indians?” he questioned.
He added that the ongoing demolitions were taking place in a “toxic environment” after the abrogation of Article 370 and the downgrading of J&K into a Union Territory. “This is not a normal time. Whatever the government does today can be used against us tomorrow,” he cautioned.
Lone said serving eviction notices is a dangerous trend. “This is a dangerous trend and will be used for dispossession,” he warned.
He further argued that ownership is being made ambiguous, and people who bought shops at market rates are being treated as encroachers. “This government cares more about leaseholders than about poor people who have invested their hard-earned money,” he added.
(Straight Talk Communications)