Farooq warns of ‘uprising’ if Article 35A is abrogated
SRINAGAR:Another crisis is staring Kashmir in the face over the alleged attempts of abrogation of Article 35(A) which empowers the Jammu and Kashmir legislature to define ‘permanent residents’ of the state and confer special rights and privileges on them.
While separatists have called for a shutdown on coming Saturday (August 12), opposition leader Farooq Abdullah on Monday cautioned of an uprising “far stronger” than 2008 Amarnath land row if Article 35(A) was repealed. Abdullah chaired a meeting of opposition parties in Srinagar to discuss the reports of its abrogation and come together against its removal.
“Whether (people are making efforts to abrogate) Article 35 (A) or not I don’t know, but one thing is sure that we are ready to fight against this,” he said.
“People are never tired. Never say people are tired. When it will come to that decision, you will see mass (up)rising. Don’t forget when that Amaranth Yatra (land agitation) thing happened, overnight people arose. So 35(A) will be far greater revolt that I wonder whether they would be able to hold that,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Abdullah said that people need to understand that the removal of the Article is going to affect the whole state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
The Supreme Court is hearing the case after a Delhi-based NGO, ‘We the Citizens’ filed a writ petition seeking the striking down of Article 35 A in 2014. Reacting over the case, CM Mehbooba Mufti, last month, had wondered who was doing it and cautioned that if the rights and privileges to the people of the state are tinkered with, then there would be no one in the state to hold the Tricolour.
The statement had prompted harsh reactions from state BJP saying the Article has done “more harm to the State than any other provision of the law”.
Under the said provision, citizens from other parts of the country are prohibited from acquiring immovable property in the J&K, taking up employment under the state government, availing of the state-sponsored scholarship schemes, or settling permanently anywhere in the state.
Terming the attempts to abrogate the article a “ploy of Indian rulers and their Kashmiri stooges to wipe out state subject law” in Jammu Kashmir, separatist leaders said that centre wanted to do what Israel was doing in Palestine.
“This kind of law is implemented in places that comprise of forests, glaciers and water bodies and Jammu Kashmir being such a land needed a protection regarding ecological balance which was provided by this law. By eradicating this law Indian rulers backed by RSS want to fulfil their old dream of changing Muslim majority into a minority in Kashmir and hence change the demography of this land like what Israel has done in Palestine,” a joint statement by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik said.