Former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah on Friday expressed fears that young students from Kashmir may be targeted across the country due to hate peddled against the entire ‘Kashmiri nation’, while making reference to recent Bollywood movie The Kashmir Files.
“If any student is attacked or harmed in any State in India, the Centre and that State government have to take the blame for it. A perception is being created that all Kashmiri Muslims do not stand other faiths. I fear that the hatred propagated may have consequences for young Kashmiri students studying outside, who are just in their 20s and were not even born in 1990. They are being made vulnerable,” Mr. Abdullah said on the death anniversary of senior NC leader Wali Mohammad Itoo, who was assassinated in 1990 by gunmen.
PM’s remarks
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks “Dil aur Dilli ki Doori” made during the all-party meeting last year, he stated, “Instead of reducing the doori [gap], there is an attempt to defame the entire nation of Kashmir across the globe. Ordinary Kashmiris are not happy with what happened in 1990, as people left their homes. The ordinary Kashmiri had no role in it.”
Mr. Abdullah was referring to the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits in the wake of growing militancy in the Valley. “Not just the Pandits, Muslims and Sikhs too were killed [in the 1990s]. Muslims and Sikhs also migrated from Kashmir and haven’t returned yet. Are we paving way for the return of Pandits by spreading hatred?” he observed.
He said the fact was that many lies have been projected in The Kashmir Files. “The biggest one is that it has been wrongly shown that there was a NC government. The fact is that it was Governor’s rule in 1990 in J&K when Kashmiri Pandit’s left Kashmir. At the Centre, it was a BJP-backed government headed by V.P Singh.”
On the revocation of J&K’s special constitutional position, he asserted that the NC had put up a fight and would not back down from it.
Delimitation panel
“We see the design of the J&K Delimitation Commission, which has not applied mind while carving out new seats. The design is to ensure the victory of the BJP in Assembly elections and then pass a resolution in favour of the unpopular decisions made on August 5, 2019,” he said.
On normality returning to J&K, he remarked that he saw no corner safe in Kashmir. “Appearance of 10 tourists is being described as a return of peace. Show me one corner where people are safe in Kashmir? Even criticising the government invites Public Safety Act [PSA] against journalists. A PSA dossier says the journalist concerned has not praised the government. I salute the journalists who still move around with a mike in their hands in Kashmir. I was also booked under the PSA [in 2019] for campaigning in the polls and bringing voters to the booths,” he added.
