“As far as I know, what I heard from the police and the army, who said they only knew that there were three militants inside the house but did not know who they were,” she said.
The Chief Minister said that had the security forces known about Wani’s presence inside the house in Kokernag area of South Kashmir’s Anantnag district, it would have been possible to keep the situation “from turning to what it is today.” “I feel if they knew, perhaps we would not have such a situation when the overall situation in the state was improving, so it could have been a chance,” she said.
The police and intelligence agencies are saying that they did not know who was there, she said. The Chief Minister said the government did not get enough time to make arrangements to contain the situation, unlike when Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013.
“When Afzal Guru was hanged, (then chief minister) Omar (Abdullah) knew, so he made all the arrangements before-hand. We knew nothing and we came to know suddenly. But, despite that, we tried to impose curfew so that children do not come out,” she said. Mehbooba said an atmosphere should be created in the state for peace dialogue and the government would do “everything” to provide relief to the people affected by the violence.
“An atmosphere should be created in Jammu and Kashmir where there is dialogue, transparency like in (former Prime Minister Atal Behari) Vajpayee’s time when a peace process was started and there was ceasefire with Pakistan,” she said.
Meanwhile, curfew was lifted on Thursday from across Kashmir, barring Anantnag town, following improvement in situation, a day after it was re-imposed in parts of the Valley to thwart a separatist march to Kulgam district.
“There is no curfew anywhere in the Valley except Anantnag town of south Kashmir,” a police official said. Curfew had also been imposed in five police station areas of Srinagar city —Khanyar, Rainawari, Maharaj Gunj, Safa Kadal and Nowhatta —while restrictions were imposed on assembly of four or more persons in jurisdiction of Maisuma and Kralkhud police stations.