Srinagar, Feb 5 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (NC) leader and Member of Parliament from Srinagar Ruhullah Mehdi on Wednesday hit out at the Union government over the “detention of over 500 people” after Kulgam attack, saying that punishing an “entire population” for the “actions of a few is not counterterrorism but collective retribution.”

Mehdi was responding to the reports that said that over 500 people have been detained in a massive crackdown across the valley in wake of killing of a retired soldier Manzoor Ahmad Wagay in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Monday. His wife and niece were also wounded in the terror attack.

The report said that those detained were largely relatives of Kashmiri militants based in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and this measure were aimed at sending a message to militants operating from across the border that “such attacks won’t be tolerated.”

“I have been briefed about reports of over 500 individuals being rounded up by the SOG (Special Operation Group of J&K Police) in sweeping nocturnal raids across Kashmir. The number is suspected to be much higher in actuality. I fail to imagine the terror of a family whose loved ones now lie in the abyss of an opaque security system. This is not security. This is punishment by exile,” the NC MP said in a post on X.

While unequivocally condemning the recent attack on a Territorial Army soldier and his family, Mehdi asserted that counterterrorism measures should not translate into collective punishment for the entire population.

“Violence, especially against women and children, is abhorrent. But to punish an entire population for the crimes of a few is not counterterrorism - it is collective retribution. The establishment in Kashmir and in Delhi need to arrive at a common denominator as far as conducting operations in Kashmir is concerned. The use of vague, legally unsound terminology such as “OGWs,” “Hybrid Militants”, etc. to justify human rights violations must be shunned,” he added.

“No regime in the world has successfully governed a population by making itself the object of its people's fear and resentment. I strongly remind you of the moral calculus at play here, if you must rule by repression, then you have already lost your legitimacy. If your idea of democracy is a valley silenced by fear rather than engaged in dialogue, then your democracy lies in darkness,” the MP said.
UNI MJR CS1647