Srinagar, Sep 11: Member of Parliament for North Kashmir Engineer Rashid, who was released from Tihar jail on Wednesday after being granted bail in a terror funding case, Thursday landed in Srinagar and righaway bowed on the road to thank Almighty. He asserted that his fight was much bigger than the one being fought by Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.
Soon after landing in Srinagar after a gap of five years, Rashid bowed down on the main road, kissed the road and also broke down. “This is my land,” he said, talking to reporters.
Asked about allegations levelled against him by Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, Er Rashid said: “I am fighting the battle which Omar and Mehbooba can’t fight. My fight is much bigger than these two.” He said he wants self respect, peace with dignity and not the peace of the graveyard. “I will fight for my people who punctured Prime Minister Narendera Modi’s claims of Naya Kashmir through their votes,” he said.
Er Rashid headed for Baramulla district where he will address a gathering. He has been released on an interim bail by the Delhi court till October 2.
“We want to tell (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi that no one needs peace more than we do. But that peace will come at our conditions, not yours. We do not want the peace of a graveyard but peace with dignity,” he said.
“The people of Kashmir will win as the people of Jammu and Kashmir are on the path of truth. The decisions taken by Narendra Modi on August 5, 2019, are totally unacceptable to us. Whether you send Engineer Rashid to Tihar or anywhere else, we will emerge victorious,” he said, referring to the revocation of Article 370 by the Centre.
Flanked by his son and party leaders, Rashid asked his supporters not to lose courage as “the truth is with us”.
“Nobody on earth, be it Narendra Modi, be it Amit Shah, can suppress our voice. The truth is with us and truth will be victorious. We are not begging. We want to be treated like humans.
“We want the Jammu and Kashmir issue, which has been pending since 1947 and has claimed 4-5 lakh lives, to be resolved so that peace returns to the whole sub-continent, no mother loses her children and nobody is imprisoned,” the MP added.
Rashid, who was released from Tihar jail on Wednesday, said that for him, the power of being an MP or an MLA did not matter as “everything comes later on”.
“First, the self-respect, rights and liberty of Kashmiris have to be protected, preserved and honoured,” he said.
