Mehbooba, Omar blame Centre for ‘targeted killings’ in J&K

J&K’s main regional parties, the Peoples Democratic Party and National Conference, have blamed the Centre for the rise in targeted killings in the Valley and said “tourism was not a sign of normalcy”. Former Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said she was prevented by the police from visiting Budgam “to express my solidarity with Kashmiri Pandits protesting against the Government of India’s failure to protect them”. “I have been put under house arrest, because the fact that Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits empathise with each other’s pain doesn’t fit into their vicious communal narrative,” Ms. Mufti said. Condemning the killing of the Pandit employee and a policeman in the past 24 hours, NC vice-president Omar Abdullah said, “Tourism is not normalcy, it’s a barometer of economic activity.