Kashmiris identify more with Imran Khan: Iltija Mufti

We are hurtling towards Godse's idea of India which crushes dissent, says Mufti

Iltija Mufti, the daughter of former chief minister of occupied Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti, praised Prime Minister Imran Khan's speech at the United Nations and said the people of the occupied valley identify more with him than other leaders.

“He spoke up for Kashmiris,” she said in an interview with the BBC. “His speech [at UNGA] went for half an hour and Kashmiris really respect the fact that he did.”

Refuting Narendra Modi’s claim regarding Article 370 being revoked for development in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), she said the Indian government “wants to engineer demographic changes in the only Muslim majority state.”



“The development argument is a deeply flawed one and it does not cut it,” she added.

When asked if there is any hope of constructive dialogue being held with New Dehli for the future of IOK, she asked what kind of hope would a person have from a government that is afraid of 9-year-old boys and detains them.

Mufti stressed that it is a tragedy, that after 72 years, when leadership of the region "acceded to a secular and a democratic India", every Kashmiri is questioning whether it was the right choice as it is not Gandhi’s India anymore.

“We are hurtling towards Godse's idea of India which crushes dissent and which doesn’t have space for democracy,” she warned, “It does not want to embrace people of different ethnicities and cultures. The soul of this county is being assaulted every day.”



“Kashmir has acute electricity crises,” she said. “It produces 4,312 Mw of hydropower, but the government of India only gives us 13 per cent. One of the points in our agenda was to return these power projects to Kashmir so that Kashmiris can have electricity like the rest of the cities, but these things were never done," she said in reference to her mother being part of the occupied region's government

The interview originally appeared on BBC