Jammu and Kashmir education minister Syed Mohammed Altaf Bukhari given additional charge of finance

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Education Minister Syed Mohammed Altaf Bukhari was given additional charge of the finance ministry on Tuesday, a day after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti axed Haseeb Drabu from the post over his remark that Kashmir was not a political issue, officials said. [caption id=“attachment_4388473” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Jammu and Kashmir Education Minister Syed Mohammed Altaf Bukhari. Twitter@jkedumin[/caption] A notification signed on behalf of the chief minister said Bukhari, one of the founding members of the PDP, was given charge of the department of finance as well as labour and employment as an interim measure. Drabu, 57, one of the architects of the PDP-BJP alliance in the state, was sacked on Monday following his remark that people were “barking up the wrong tree” as the Kashmir issue was not a political issue. “It (Jammu and Kashmir) is not a political issue as far as I can see. They have been barking up the wrong tree for the last 50 or 70 years by talking about the politics of it; that the political situation has never improved. We seriously need to look at in terms of how it is a society that is in search for itself,” Drabu had said at an event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi on Friday.