Member of Parliament Sheikh Abdul Rashid, also known as Engineer Rashid, returned home after serving a five-year prison sentence and expressed that no one needs peace more than the people of Kashmir, but they want it on their own terms, not on those imposed by the central government.
A Delhi court granted interim bail to Rashid on Tuesday (September 10), allowing him to campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir until October 2.
Engineer Rashid, the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) chief, has been in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since 2019 on charges of alleged terror funding. Upon his release from Tihar Jail on Wednesday, he made a dramatic gesture at the airport, dropping to his knees and touching his forehead to the ground in a display of humility and gratitude.
“We want to tell (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi that no one needs peace more than we do. But that peace will come at our conditions, not yours. We do not want the peace of a graveyard but peace with dignity,” he said, PTI reported.
The Baramulla MP, upon being released from Tihar Jail, expressed his gratitude to his supporters who had gathered outside the airport to welcome him.
“The people of Kashmir will win as the people of Jammu and Kashmir are on the path of truth. The decisions taken by Narendra Modi on August 5, 2019, are totally unacceptable to us. Whether you send Engineer Rashid to Tihar or anywhere else, we will emerge victorious,” he said, referring to the revocation of Article 370 by the Centre.
With his son and party leaders by his side, Rashid addressed his supporters, urging them not to lose hope, as he confidently declared that “the truth is with us” and will ultimately prevail.
He emphasised that no individual, including Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, can silence their voices, and that they will not beg for rights, but instead demand to be treated with dignity and respect as human beings.
“We want the Jammu and Kashmir issue, which has been pending since 1947 and has claimed 4-5 lakh lives, to be resolved so that peace returns to the whole sub-continent, no mother loses her children and nobody is imprisoned,” the MP added, PTI reported.
When asked about the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) targeting him, Rashid, a two-time legislator from the former Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, expressed his respect for both parties’ leadership. However, he stated, “But I am fighting a fight for those people for whom they do not have the courage to fight”.
He slammed the parties’ inactivity, saying,“They were invisible for the last five years. That is why they lost in the parliamentary election. My fight is much bigger than what the PDP and NC are trying today.”
Rashid added that he wasn’t pleased about Omar Abdullah’s loss in the Lok Sabha polls, but felt “satisfied that the people of North Kashmir exposed the illusion of Modi’s ‘new’ Kashmir.”