New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday as the Valley continues to remain on the edge days after the bypoll violence and amid reports of Kashmiri students being threatened outside the state.
Mehbooba, whose PDP is in alliance with the BJP in the state, is likely to press for some political initiative from the Centre to address the situation.
On Sunday, a 27-year-old Kashmiri researcher at the premier BITS Pilani in Rajasthan left for home after alleging that he was threatened by some unidentified persons, barely three weeks after joining the institute.
Hashim Sofi, who hails from Bandipora district of Kashmir, had told the hostel's chief warden that on Friday morning, he had found the door of his room and his clothes inked with threats and abuses, an official of the institute said. Following the incident, BITS Pilani administration ordered a probe.
Prime Minister Modi has asked the chief ministers of all states to "reach out" to Kashmiri students, reiterating an earlier appeal by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. At a NITI Aayog meeting on Sunday, Modi "seconded" Mehbooba's suggestion that states should take interest in the students from Jammu and Kashmir. The Prime Minister "urged states to reach out to these students (of J&K) from time to time", said a statement by the PMO quoting Modi's concluding remarks.
The reported threats to Kashmiri students have given ammo to the Opposition National Conference whose working president Omar Abdullah has questioned Mehbooba Mufti's continuance in office. "Posters threatening Kashmiris in UP, BJP Ministers threaten Kashmiris with bullets, BJP poaches MLAs to win MLC seat and @MehboobaMufti clings on," Omar had said in a tweet.
The Modi-Mufti meeting also comes against the backdrop of recent bypoll to Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency which witnessed large-scale violence and the lowest turnout ever. In the bypoll, the PDP also lost the seat to National Conference, just in nearly three years after the 2014 general elections.
BJP minister Chander Prakash Ganga recently advocated strong action, saying "traitors and stone-pelters should be treated with bullets".
This comment drew the ire of the PDP, which said there was a "conspiracy" to keep trouble brewing in the Valley.
"Such detestable remarks not only reflect the nauseous mentality of some extremist politicians in the state, but also expose the larger design of certain elements to provoke fresh trouble in Kashmir so that Kashmiris are pushed into perpetual educational and economicdis-empowerment," senior PDP leader Peerzada Mansoor had said in a statement later.
Against the backdrop of the strains, BJP's pointsman for Jammu and Kashmir Ram Madhav last week held a meeting with senior PDP leader Haseeb Drabu in Jammu. Madhav then met Ganga, who later expressed regret for his controversial comment.
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