Srinagar, Feb 13 : JKPC President and MLA Handwara Sajad Lone has sharply criticized the National Conference, Congress, and the People’s Democratic Party for paradoxically welcoming the recent High Court judgment, which ruled that individuals cannot be denied passports solely because a family member was involved in militancy.
Lone, in a strong rebuke, accused these parties of being the architects and enforcers of a system of collective punishment that destroyed thousands of lives.
Taking to X, he wrote, “Can those Kashmiris who weaponized the passport verification system, who actually facilitated the process of collective punishment, shut up for the moment and not spoil the party?”
Calling the verdict a potential turning point, Lone categorized Kashmiris into three groups: victims who suffered under this unwritten rule, those unaffected by it, and those who exploited it against their own people. He revealed that he himself had been denied a passport for four years without any legal justification.
He reminded the public that before 2019, passport verification was under state jurisdiction, with the police deciding whether to issue an adverse or favorable report.
“Let all Kashmiris know that, in the pre-2019 era, passport verification was a state matter. It was the state police that decided whether to give an adverse or favorable report,” he wrote.
Lone denounced the National Conference and Congress for their blatant role in institutionalizing this injustice, calling it an unforgivable betrayal of the people.
“How dare they welcome this judgment when they were the masterminds of this very injustice? They were the ones who set this sinister precedent in J&K. Is this shameless hypocrisy, or have they conveniently erased their own crimes from memory?” he said.
Lone hailed High Court Judge M. A. Chowdhary for delivering a landmark judgment and expressed hope that future rulings would further dismantle this oppressive practice.
However, he asserted that those responsible for enforcing this system in the past had no right to celebrate its undoing. “This moment belongs to the victims, not the perpetrators,” he declared.
Notably, Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference has filed a PIL challenging the misuse of police verifications as a tool of “collective punishment.”
The party seeks a Jammu and Kashmir-wide extension of the High Court ruling and strict enforcement of verification laws to prevent further unjust passport denials.(KNS)
