Amid Israel-Hamas War, ex-JNU student leader Shehla Rashid thanks Modi govt for ensuring peace, security in J&K

It is feared that the Israel-Hamas conflict will escalate further with the possibility of spilling over to other Middle East countries. Last weekend, Hamas attacked Israel, resulting in over 1,300 casualties. Israel's retaliatory strikes in Gaza have surpassed 2,300 deaths.

Reacting to the situation, Shehla Rashid, who had been a bitter critic of the Narendra Modi government once, wrote on X: "Looking at the events in the Middle East, today I realise how lucky we are as Indians. The Indian Army and security forces have sacrificed their everything for our safety. Credit where it's due @pmoindia @HMOIndia @manojsinha_ @adgpi @ChinarcorpsIA for bringing peace to Kashmir.”

"Peace is impossible without security, as the Middle East crisis has shown. The Indian Army @ChinarcorpsIA along with @crpfindia and brave personnel of Jammu Kashmir Police @JmuKmrPolice have made tremendous sacrifices to ensure long-term peace and security in Kashmir," she said in another post.

She was one of the top student leaders, who agitated against the Centre on a string of issues like the abrogation of Article 370 which stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and Citizenship Amendment Act.

In 2016, her name came to the forefront in the incident involving JNU when several student leaders were arrested for allegedly raising anti-national slogans.

In contrast to her former stand, lately, she has backed the Narendra Modi government over a host of issues, including its rule in Kashmir.

In July, she retracted her petition contesting the central government's 2019 decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir's special status and divide the former state into two Union Territories.

Rashid has also remarked that there has been an improvement in the human rights situation in Kashmir under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the period of Governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir.

However inconvenient it may be to admit this, the human rights record in Kashmir has improved under the @narendramodi government and @OfficeOfLGJandK administration. By a purely utilitarian calculus, the govt's clear stance has helped save lives overall. That's my angle," she posted on X on August 15 this year.