Ban on Jamaat-e-Islami should be revoked: Mehbooba Mufti

People's Democratic Party (PDP) said on Sunday banned Jamaat-e-Islami's (JeI) willingness to contest the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir is a good step and the ban on the organisation should be revoked.

"It is a good thing. I want the Government of India to revoke ban on the JeI because if you are not banning communal organisations which are spreading venom in this country, I do not want to name them, those who take out rallies, pelt stones on mosques, lynch Muslims, then why is there a ban on the JeI which has contributed a lot in the education sector, helped people in floods of 2014 and Covid?" Mufti told reporters in Srinagar.

According to some media reports, former leaders of the JeI are mulling to contest the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir as independent candidates.

The PDP chief said her party would contest the Assembly polls alone.

"We have almost announced candidates for the constituencies. The Congress and the NC are yet to announce, but we have already announced," she said.

On the issue of Article 370, Mufti said, "The PDP's agenda is clear that the resolution of J-K should come in a manner that the people here live with dignity, hold their heads high. The abrogation of Article 370 has further complicated the issue and whenever the resolution of the issue of J-K takes place, then it would start from (restoration of) Article 370," she said.

She claimed the people in north Kashmir voted for "plebiscite sentiment" in the Lok Sabha polls by electing incarcerated Sheikh Abdul Rashid alias Engineer Rashid.

Rashid, a two-time MLA from the erstwhile seat of Langate in north Kahsmir's Kupwara, supported a plebiscite for Jammu and Kashmir.

"This is the same BJP whose prime minister A.B. Vajpayee had acknowledged that Kashmir is an issue which needs to be addressed. He talked to Pakistan as well the separatist leaders here. It meant there is an issue here.

"Article 370 was a bridge between J-K and the country. Now, they have broken that bridge and they came to see its impact in the Parliament elections when the people of north Kashmir voted for the plebiscite sentiment which they (Centre) had thought was perhaps dead," she said.

Mufti said her party is of the view that the "resolution of Kashmir issue" has to be found within the framework of the Constitution of the country.