SRINAGAR: Senior Congress leader and CWC member Tariq Hamid Karra Monday claimed that a “highly connected” friend of him who is in “knowhow of the things” has informed him that Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood would be restored by Centre on August 15 and high-speed internet would be restored on August 5.
“A highly connected friend of mine told me that ‘The sudden outbursts and parotting by some political leaders from J&K for restoration of Statehood is a precursor to the already taken decision by chosen few in GOI for which the timeline fixed is 15th August, 2020 for initiating the process for restoration of Statehood and 5th August for restoring 4G’,” Karra tweeted.
“It is actually a rat race for taking the credit,” he further tweeted.
On August 5 last year, centre scrapped J&K’s special status and bifurcated J&K into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Since August 5, high speed internet is suspended in the UT.
Karra, who was a founding member of PDP before quitting the party in September 2016 to protest PDP-BJP government’s handling of Kashmir situation post-Burhan’s killing, said the source, who told him about restoration of statehood and 4G internet is the “highly connected person”.
“He shared the information with me and I shared it with the people,” he said.
Asked whether the person is reliable, Karra said, “The person is reliable for me and is a very responsible person. He is in the knowhow of the things. “
“I am not that irresponsible to quote anyone. Things might happen or things might not happen,” he said.
Karra, former MP from Srinagar, said when he informed his well-connected friend that demand for statehood has come up fiercely in J&K in the last few days, he (his friend) told him that “it was just rhetoric and everybody wants to take the credit for it. Actually the fact is that it is already a pre-decided thing and even the timeline for statehood and internet restoration has been fixed”.
The political leaders including J&K Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad have recently pitched for restoration of statehood to J&K.
Asked what is Congress party’s stand on the restoration of statehood and special status, Karra said, “We have not talked about it yet. In the Congress party, nothing can be said on its own. Till now we have not talked about it. This may come up in CWC and then only Congress will take a stand”.