PDP MLA revolts against Mehbooba Mufti
Srinagar, July 1: In a bitter attack on former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, senior PDP legislator Abid Hussain Ansari on Sunday said that she has converted the party into a "family fiefdom".
Addressing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) workers and supporters in Zadibal area here, Ansari said: "She has destroyed the party and finally converted it into a family fiefdom.
"She got her cameraman brother out of the blue and made him Tourism Minister even when he did not have an elementary knowledge of tourism."
Ansari said that he has "always told her that she was surrounded by sycophants who are destroying the party and giving her wrong advice" but "she never listened to me because she was busy giving remote control of highly sensitive institutions like the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) to a relative who was running the institute from London".
He said he has now decided to join a political party that would protect the interests of his workers and community members.
After the PDP-BJP coalition government fell in the state, this is the first public attack on Mehbooba Mufti by a senior party leader.
Ansari belongs to a powerful religious family of the Shia community and sitting MLA and former Education Minister Imran Ansari is his nephew.
Imran Ansari represents the Pattan constituency in Baramulla district while Abid Ansari represents the Zadibal constituency here.
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India-Pak tensions: Saudi junior foreign minister in Delhi on unannounced visit
New Delhi (PTI): Saudi Arabia's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Aljubeir is in India on an unannounced visit and held talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday with a focus on de-escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.
Aljubeir's visit to New Delhi comes as the already frosty ties between India and Pakistan plummet further following the Indian military's targeted strikes on nine terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.
"A good meeting with @AdelAljubeir, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia this morning," Jaishankar said in a social media post.
"Shared India's perspectives on firmly countering terrorism," he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also landed in New Delhi around midnight last night on a scheduled visit amid the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.
Araghchi will hold wide-ranging talks with Jaishankar shortly. He is also meeting President Droupadi Murmu in the afternoon.
In retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack, Indian armed forces on early Wednesday carried out missile strikes on nine terror targets, including Bahawalpur, a stronghold of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror outfit, and Muridke, the base of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India decided to carry out the "proportionate" strikes to bring the perpetrators and planners of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack to justice as there was "no demonstrable step" from Pakistan to act against terrorist infrastructure on territories under its control.
