Former CM of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah in a recent interview alleges that the central government tries to gag him about the developments that took place in the state after August 5, 2019.
Abdullah said, “in October when he was in detention, a magistrate came to his house with some papers and stamp and said if I will sign the bond, the government will immediately free me from detention on the condition that I will not silent on all the subsequent events that took place in the state”.
He also stated that his party is resolved to fight all the matters before the Supreme Court, where they challenged the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A and abolition of statehood of J&K.
“We were among the first to petition the Supreme Court on the issue. There are other parties that have not even bothered to go to court. They will say that they will not accept what has been done but you haven’t even started the fight to reverse what has happened,” he told ThePrint. “We have at least taken the fight to the courts. I am asked why don’t you demand restoration of Article 370. Demand from whom? The government in Delhi has not changed. You are telling me that I should demand 370 from the same people who took it away? How is that logical?” said Omar Abdullah.
Abdullah said that he is ready to accept statehood instead of what happened on 5th August and they are ready to fight in the court for getting justice it is the only avenue left for them to seek justice.
Also, denied the Amit Shah statement that Scrapping of 370 is beneficial for the state to attract investment and quell militancy. However, the absence of industries, as well as a year-long ban on 4G, is contradicting the Amit Shah’s statement.
“There is an attempt being made to misrepresent what I have said and to misconstrue the words and the sentiment behind what I have said. It is not perchance, it is by design. I guess some activists or journalists are unhappy I have not spoken to them and are quite happy to take words and spin them completely around. I wish journalists were in front of me. I would ask them to please show me in any of my interviews or my statements where I have said the restoration of statehood trumps the fight against what happened on the fifth of August,” said NC chief.
He further said peoples in the valley are very speculative about the new domicile law because the centre attempts to change the demographic graph of the valley. While he also said, it took a long time to change J&k from a Muslim majority to the Muslim minority. He called the action taken by the government discriminatory by comparing with Ladhak because the same domicile law is not applicable in Ladhak and the government fears the backlash from the Buddhist community, whereas they don’t care about the Muslim population of J&k.
When asked about the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) under which political leaders were arrested across the state, Abdullah regretted his decision of not revoking PSA, when he was in power. He further said that 17 leaders of his party were detained were the PSA. Though every effort has been made to ensure political detenues don’t seek legal remedies – individuals and
families have been threatened with arrest under the PSA or with incarceration outside the state.
He also said people of the state are also disappointed with the Supreme court because SC failed to prioritize the petitions challenging the 5th August decision and also mentioned that some of the measures which are implemented by BJP in the state for the first time now have been migrated to rest of India, like dismissing the state governments with the help of Raj Bhavan and Internet shutdowns which happened all across the country to silence the protest over the amendment of Citizenship Act.
“Why on earth would I fight to be a CM of a UT when I have been CM of a state? Why would I accept the fact that tomorrow I won’t know who my DG would be? Forget DG, I can’t even decide who the DCs and SSPs in the districts would be,” stated former Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Omar Abdullah.
He further added, “I don’t want to be a disempowered CM. Therefore, I have made it clear that so long J&K is a UT, I will aspire to the office of CM and therefore will not fight an assembly election. But that’s not the same as saying that I accept what you have done to 370 and all I want is statehood. No No No.”
This news has been written and submitted by Mr. Sourav during his course of internship at B&B Associates LLP. Mr. Sourav is a third-year law student at the Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur.
