SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s cinematographer brother Tassaduq Hussain Mufti and PDP MLA Javed Mustafa Mir were on Thursday inducted as ministers in the state Cabinet.
Governor N N Vohra administered the oath of office and secrecy to Tassaduq and Javed at Raj Bhawan in Jammu, the winter capital of the state.
The induction of two new faces in the Cabinet necessitated changes in the portfolios of some PDP ministers.
The chief minister allotted the tourism portfolio to her brother Tassaduq, while Javed was given the portfolios of disaster management, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and floriculture.
The PDP’s Abdul Rehman Veeri was divested of the disaster management, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction portfolio and will now look after revenue, parliamentary affairs and hajj and auqaf.
Tassaduq, 45, who is known for his cinematography in Bollywood movies Omkara and Kaminey, joined active politics on January 7 this year, the first death anniversary of his father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
He was then appointed coordinator of the Chief Minister’s Grievance Cell by the Mehbooba government.
He quit as head of the cell a fortnight ago and was nominated as a member of the J&K Legislative Council by the governor last week on the seat vacated by Vikramaditya Singh after his resignation from the PDP and the upper house of the legislature.
Call for poll boycott
Separatist leaders on Thursday called for a boycott of panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir, to be held from February 15, 2018. Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said: “These elections are meant to harm the national interests of Kashmiri people.