New Delhi: The Jammu and Kashmir Police dismissed the allegations as “completely false” of PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija that she was being “pressured to withdraw her petition” in the high court over her passport, news agency PTI reported.
It is “unfortunate” that the public person has projected her “personal grievance” as the grievance of the public in general in Kashmir, the police said.
This comes a day after Iltija was issued a “country-specific passport” for two years to allow her to study in United Arab Emirates. She had moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in February after her application for a passport was not cleared following a report by the J-K Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
She said she would continue to fight her case despite “pressure to withdraw her petition”.
Without naming Iltija in its response, police said security verifications before issuing passports is a high-value public service and alertness of the force has detected a total 54 young boys who were wrongly given passport service during 2017-18.
The police said in a statement that a quick internal audit was conducted after the allegation of pressure on the litigant and was dismissed as “completely false”.
Notably, her passport expired on January 2 and she applied for a fresh one on June 8 last year.
The police in a statement said, “On learning that accusations have been made that the CID of J&K Police has pressurised a litigant to refrain from litigating in the High Court in connection with her passport related grievances, a quick internal audit was carried out.”
“J&K Police can affirm that the claim of such pressure is completely false. Nevertheless, officers are being detailed to approach the aggrieved person and ascertain details – who pressurized, when, where and under what circumstances so that the quick internal inquiry if found inadequate can be expanded to take suitable disciplinary action against the delinquent,” it said.
“J&K Police and its affiliates are public institutions and designed to serve public interest. Denigrating the community’s own institutions for grievances that are personal on the basis of false accusations is self-harm,” the police added.