Known for making contentious statements, Mehbooba Mufti, the chief of PDP, has stirred yet another furor by inducting controversial ‘activist’ Talib Hussain into the fold of PDP. Taking it to Twitter, the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir posted a tweet welcoming Hussain into the party and hailing him as an upright tribal activist who fought for rape victims in the state.

Happy to welcome well known tribal rights activist Chowdhary Talib Hussain into PDP today. He fought tirelessly to ensure justice for Rasana rape victim at the cost of his personal safety. Im confident he will work tirelessly towards our vision for a khushaal J&K. pic.twitter.com/CQRSgO5n4a — Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) April 1, 2019

However, the man hailed as a conscientious rights activist by Mehbooba Mufti has a chequered history of grave allegations leveled against him. Talib Hussain, who came into the limelight after spearheading an agitation seeking justice for the eight-year-old girl, brutally gang-raped and murdered in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir in 2018, was himself booked for alleged domestic violence and attempt to kill his wife over dowry.

Talib’s wife, Nusrat Begum, with her two little daughters, went with a written complaint along with court orders to the police station along with her father, Mohammad Tahir and nearly a dozen neighbours last year alleging that her husband used to physically assault her for dowry.

However, this is not the only incident where Talib is accused of a serious crime. Talib was arrested by the police last year in August on the charges of rape by his own cousin. He is accused of raping the woman while she was grazing her cattle in the forests of Chawda. According to the complainant, armed with a knife, Hussain had intercepted her, thrashed and raped her in the forest.

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After almost a month and a half, she shared her ordeal with her husband following which a complaint was lodged in the police station. Talib was arrested from Tral in Jammu and Kashmir and a case had been registered against him under section 376 (rape) of Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) and 4/25 Arms Act.

Talib was arrested by the police and had been lodged in the Samba jail for a time. He was later released on bail.

In another incident, a student of JNU had alleged that “The hero of Kathua protests” had brutally raped her in Delhi on 27th April 2018. The victim states that ‘the activist’ insisted on the victim coming to meet him and when she did, (after 40 phone calls), took her to an apartment in the Batla house area where he raped her brutally, despite her repeated attempts to fight him off. The victim had alleged, without taking Talib’s name, that he had not only caused her great physical harm but also profound mental trauma.

With such grave allegations levelled against the so-called ‘rights activist’, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s encouraging welcome for such an allegedly notorious miscreant into her party displays that she has little sympathy for the victims of domestic violence and rapes who have raised their voice against the injustice meted out to them by this so-called ‘activist’.