SRINAGAR: The former J&K Chief Minister and opposition National Conference (NC) President Farooq Abdullah on Friday in a controversial statement said Kashmiri youth were picking up guns not for becoming legislators but for “freedom of Kashmir” and maintained that youngsters are not afraid of death.
“There was a need to address why Kashmiri youth were picking up guns,” Abdullah said while addressing a gathering of NC workers at party headquarters in Srinagar.
He said the youth are not picking up guns to become legislators but for the resolution of the vexed Kashmir issue.
Over 50 Kashmiri youth had picked up guns last year and joined different militant groups. Most of them had picked guns after Kashmir militancy’s poster boy and 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter in South Kashmir’s Kokernag area on July 8 last year. His killing had triggered over five months-long unrest in the Valley during which 94 people were killed, over 13000 injured and more than 8000 arrested.
Abdullah said the youth are giving sacrifices to demand their right and asked the party workers not to forget these sacrifices.
“Everyone lives life and nobody wants to die. But they (youth) have made a promise with Almighty that you decide the matters of life and death but we will sacrifice our life for the freedom of this nation,” he said.
The three-time Chief Minister said the youth in the Valley are not afraid of death and not scared of guns. “They are giving sacrifices to demand their right: they say this is our land and we are its rightful owners but India and Pakistan does not understand this”.
“The young men we see out on the roads today don’t care about their lives, their livelihood or about their personal grievances but are full of resentment and hostility because of how New Delhi has always and continues to see and define them through the narrow, conventional prism of law and order dynamics. If it were as simple as threatening the youth to desist from these protests and activities, the soil of this State wouldn’t have been soaked with the blood of thousands of young men and women. This too is no rocket science,” Abdullah said.
Terming Army chief General Rawat’s recent statement as “irresponsible,” the NC president said peoples’ anger was justified as the J&K government had formed an alliance with the communal forces.
The army chief had warned of dealing sternly with the protestors in Kashmir, who come out to protest during gunfight between troops and militants
“PDP had promised it will not ally with communal forces, but Mufti Syeed aligned with BJP and people can’t tolerate this," he said.
The former CM said statesmanship and sagacity demanded that Delhi should initiate political engagement with the alienated youth of the State rather than resorting to a confrontational and aggressive approach by issuing threats of ‘harsh measures’.
“When we demand that Delhi should engage with the politically isolated, alienated and anguished youth of the State, we are not condoning violence or turmoil – nor are we supporting strife. To the contrary, by asking New Delhi to talk to these young men, we are seeking that the root cause of alienation be addressed rather than a continuing with the policy of treating the symptoms through operational and administrative mechanisms. That is a tried, tested and failed approach and has yielded nothing but a loss of young lives on all sides”, he said.
Abdullah said the turmoil and hostility in J&K was in itself a result of extra-constitutional intrigues by successive regimes in New Delhi that went against all constitutional safeguards and promises that were provided to the State at the time of accession.
“Before looking at external factors and blaming the problems in J&K on terrorism, New Delhi should read contemporary history of the State with objectivity and then only will it realize that the simmering political issue in the State is the outcome of New Delhi’s overt and covert acts of constitutional impropriety and injustice with the State and its people”, he said.
He further said that India and Pakistan need to resume the stalled dialogue process to resolve the long pending Kashmir issue.