With the opposition National Conference urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the prevailing unrest in Kashmir at the earliest, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said a handful of people against peace were inciting the youth to brew violence in the valley for their vested interests.
Mehbooba said the Kashmiris want freedom from such forces, who are troublemakers and creating disturbances, disrupting peace.
"Kashmiris are not stone-pelters. They are peace loving, they want to open their shops, they want to send their wards to school," she said.
Urging the Centre not to see the people of Kashmir with the same eye, Mehbooba said: "There are only five percent of people, who are disturbing peace and creating law and order situation in the valley. But 95 percent are innocent people and they want to live in peace, but are suffering due to a section of selfish creatures."
Stating that violence brings only destruction and nothing else, Mehbooba said, "Guns went into Afghanistan, Syria and Russia. Was anything achieved there by using those guns? Violence brings only destruction and nothing else."
The Chief Minister, who was speaking after inaugurating a sewage treatment plant here, said these elements also tried to raise the issues of separate colonies for retired soldiers and Kashmiri Pandits but failed miserably in their attempts.
The Kashmir Valley has been on the boil since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8.