Lt Gen (retd) S K Sinha, till recently Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday launched a frontal attack on the state's main political parties, especially PDP and its patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, accusing him of being "hand in glove" with separatists and fundamentalists.
At the centre of controversy over the land for Amarnath yatra which paralysed the valley in recent days, Sinha denounced PDP as "anti-national".
Sinha, who laid down office eight days ago, minced no words in admitting that his relation with Sayeed, who was the state's Chief Minister between 2002 to 2005, had been "very bad from the very beginning".
Disclosing that he was writing a book throwing light on his eventful tenure, Sinha said that Sayeed played the "most sinister role in reviving communalism in the valley" using the ploy of transfer of 100 acres of land in the valley which was
to be used to provide facility for Amarnath pilgrims.
Two of the PDP ministers in the cabinet -- Qazi Afzal (forest) and Muzzafar Hussain Beigh (law) -- were involved in the decision to direct this forest land at Baltal but Sayeed had used the issue to "promote his agenda", he said.
"He (Sayeed) wanted to take electoral advantage of the developing situation but I think it has rebounded on him. The people have found out the duplicity of his party," he said.
82-year-old Sinha, who earlier had an equally controversial term as Governor in Assam before coming to Jammu and Kashmir, also did not spare the Centre and charged the Congress high command with undermining its own party Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
"The PDP has performed a very anti-national role in Kashmir and the pity is that PDP, for all these years, has been enjoying patronage of Delhi to the extent that Congress High Command has even undermined the position of its own party's Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad," the former Governor said.
Sinha said that he had been informing the Centre about the activities of Sayeed from time to time but the "Centre goes ahead by keeping it with the government for long."
He denied that he had put any pressure on the state government for the transfer of land and said that the proposal was lying with it for last three years.
This was a propoganda that had been circulated by the anti-national and secessionists and as well as PDP.
"On the one hand sanctioning the diversion of forest land at Baltal through its two minister" and on the other they flare up the communal tensions, he said.
"They (PDP) were trying to hunt with the hound and run with the hare. Their duplicity stands exposed and their effigies have been burnt in the streets of Srinagar by Kashmir mobs," he said.
Sinha regretted the revocation of the order and termed it a "policy of appeasement and total surrender" followed by the state government and done with "total lack of grace".
"What was worse, to appease the fundamentalists...they (state) have virtually wound up the Amarnath Shrine Board," he said, adding this move has had very serious reactions in Jammu and elsewhere in the country.