PDP, Mufti working with fundamentalists: Sinha

At the Centre of controversy over the land for Amarnath yatra which paralysed the valley in recent days, Sinha denounced PDP as "anti-national".

In a forthright interview, Sinha, who laid down office eight days ago, minced no words in admitting that his relation with Sayeed, who was the state's Chief Minister between 2002 to 2005, had been "very bad from the very beginning”.

Disclosing that he was writing a book throwing light on his eventful tenure, Sinha said that Sayeed played the "most sinister role in reviving communalism in the valley" using the ploy of transfer of 100 acres of land in the valley which was to be used to provide facility for Amarnath pilgrims.

Two of the PDP ministers in the cabinet – Qazi Afzal (forest) and Muzzafar Hussain Beigh (law) – were involved in the decision to direct this forest land at Baltal but Sayeed had used the issue to "promote his agenda", he said.

"He (Sayeed) wanted to take electoral advantage of the developing situation but I think it has rebounded on him. The people have found out the duplicity of his party," he said.

82-year-old Sinha, who earlier had an equally controversial term as Governor in Assam before coming to Jammu and Kashmir, also did not spare the Central Government and charged the Congress high command with undermining its own party Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

"PDP has performed a very anti-national role in Kashmir and the pity is that PDP, for all these years, has been enjoying patronage of Delhi to the extent that Congress High Command has even undermined the position of its own party's Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad," the former Governor said.

Sinha said that he had been informing the Centre about the activities of Sayeed from time to time but the "Centre goes ahead by keeping it with the government for long."

He denied that he had put any pressure on the state government for the transfer of land and said that the proposal was lying with it for last three years.

This was a propaganda that had been circulated by the anti-national and secessionists and as well as PDP. "On the one hand sanctioning the diversion of forest land at Baltal through its two ministers" and on the other they flare up the communal tensions, he said.

"They (PDP) were trying to hunt with the hound and run with the hare. Their duplicity stands exposed and their effigies have been burnt in the streets of Srinagar by Kashmir mobs," he said.

Sinha regretted the revocation of the order and termed it as a "policy of appeasement and total surrender" followed by the state government and done with "total lack of grace".

"What was worse, to appease the fundamentalists...they (state) have virtually wound up the Amarnath Shrine Board," he said, adding this move has had very serious reactions in Jammu and elsewhere in the country.

The former Governor said he had been receiving various "fatwas" and warnings from militant groups over his attempts to revive the "Kashmiryat", which only speaks of brotherhood.

This time the separatists chose a "non issue", namely diversion of forest land to shrine board, which has been the traditional camping site for yatra for years. The state government gave sanction after examining for three years and for constructing temporary shelters for the pilgrims and nothing else, he said.

Rubbishing the claims of secessionists and PDP, he said they used this as a ploy to "fan communal feelings. They came up with an absurd canard that the shrine board was going to put up Hindu township at Baltal and holy cave" with a view to change the demography of the state.

"Is it possible to put up a township at those heights which are covered by snow for seven to eight months in a year. Does the pilgrim go to the shrine for settling down there... Can a township be put up in 100 acres of land," Sinha asked.

"...the fundamentalists unleashed the most vicious communal propaganda. The PDP, whose ministers had been part of the decision of transferring land, were in the front of this agitation along with the likes of Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz (Umer Farooq).

"The press in the valley indulged in yellow journalism of the highest order in a manner there was no political party who could swim against the surging tide of communal passion.