Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti Sunday said she had asked the doctors to take her eyes if they could restore the eyesight of Insha Malik, a young Kashmiri girl who lost her vision after sustaining pellet injuries in south Kashmir’s Shopian town last month.
Mehbooba visited the Eye Care Centre at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital to enquire about Insha’s health.
According to an official press release, the chief minister requested the doctors at the Safdarjung Hospital to make all possible efforts to restore Insha’s eyesight. “Even if she requires an eye transplant to make her see the world around again, the state government would provide full support for the same,” she told the doctors.
The chief minister assured the parents of Insha that the government would ensure best possible treatment, within or even outside the country, for their daughter.
Later speaking at a function in Jammu, Mehbooba said she even asked the doctors to take her eye if they could restore Insha’s sight.
“Insha wanted to become a doctor, is there anything which would bring back her sight, I say it from my heart … I told the doctors that I have seen a lot of life and if I have to give one of my eyes to bring sight to her I am ready to give it,” she said. The chief minister also visited AIIMS to enquire about the welfare of a policeman, who was injured during ongoing unrest and is undergoing treatment at the hospital.
She was addressing a gathering here after launching the central government’s UJALA scheme with the distribution of LED bulbs among people.
Speaking on the occasion, Mehbooba said her party joined hands with BJP so that that both the parties can take ahead the Vajpayee doctrine and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the mandate to make it happen.
“We came together to bring Jammu and Kashmir out of this bloodshed and to bring it out of this violence. We had to adopt the Vajpayee doctrine. When Vajpayee went to Pakistan then General Musharraf did not come to meet him and then there was Kargil but later he came to India and said that whatever was necessary we will discuss, and make border irrelevant, but it happened only when Vajpayee showed a big heart,” she said.
She said Gen Musharraf after doing the “futile exercise” of going to United Nations and other bodies realized that the Vajpayee’s approach was the only way to resolve the issue. He promised that his land would not be allowed to be used for “anti-India” activities.
“As a result, violence and militancy showed a decline in Kashmir,” she said.
While attacking the present Pakistani dispensation of fueling the violence in Kashmir, the Chief Minister said that she was hopeful that after once again realising the “futility” of approaching United Nations and other platforms it will have to come and hold the hand of friendship with India.
“I am hopeful as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has attempted and the time will come when Pakistan after exploring all futile options will have to reply to India’s friendship with friendship,” she said.
She said that by closing schools and hampering the education of the youth of Kashmir the issue cannot be resolved.
“Do they want that our children should not go to school, it is a political issue, an idea but when you attack camps, police stations, then we are heading to the freedom of Syria and Libya … if we continue to follow that path of violence and give stones to small children then the day is not far away that while looking for Azaadi we end up making it a land of handicapped people,” she said.
Mehbooba said that she was told that small kids slapped an elderly shopkeeper who opened his store.
“Stones are not the solution of anything, I appeal to the people to help restore peace, the whole country is looking towards us,” she said.
She said that the all-party delegation will come to Jammu and she would want people who want to end the cycle of violence in Kashmir to be in the delegation and not what has happened in the past.
“Send the people who want dialogue and not violence, people who want to end the crisis with dialogue, whom the people of Jammu and Kashmir can trust. In the past, interlocutors came and filed reports but it yielded no output,” she said.
The Chief Minister said all the parties should join hands to bring normalcy and help restore peace in the valley.