Srinagar, February 20, 2023 (PPI-OT):In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the President of Peoples Democratic Party, Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday sought intervention of Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for her passport, saying she has been waiting for it for the past three years to take her 80-year-old mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Mehbooba Mufti in a letter to the minister said her passport’s renewal has been pending as the New Delhi-controlled Criminal Investigation Department (CID) gave an adverse report that issuing the travel document to her would undermine Indian security.

Mehbooba also highlighted the delay in issuing of passport to her daughter Iltija who wants to pursue higher studies abroad. “I am writing to you about a matter that has dragged on needlessly for the last three years, the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said and added, “My mother (Gulshan Nazir) and I applied for passport renewal in March 2020”.

She said they moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and after the case “dragged” on for three years, the court gave clear directions that the Regional Passport Office in Srinagar should not operate as the CID’s “mouthpiece” by denying passports on vague grounds. “In my case, I was asked to approach the Passport Authority of India which I have done multiple times since 2021. Unfortunately, I have not received a positive response yet. The inordinate and deliberate delay in issuing my passport is a grave violation of my fundamental right,” Mehbooba, who is currently in Jammu, said.

She said, “If suspending my basic rights in a democracy like ours is done with such brazen impunity and contempt, one cannot even imagine what an ordinary Kashmiri goes through”. “My daughter Iltija applied for her passport renewal in June 2022. Her application too is in limbo and it seems that the Passport Office in Srinagar is yet again failing to discharge its duty,” the PDP leader said.

For the past three years, “I have been eagerly waiting to take my mother on a pilgrimage to Mecca”, she said and added that “as a daughter, I feel pained and anguished to be unable to fulfil such a simple wish because of petty politics”. “I write to you hoping that you will look into the matter urgently,” she said in her letter to the external affairs minister.

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