Opposition seeks Farooq’s release, debate on Kashmir situation
NEW DELHI: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has been detained illegally and he should be set free immediately so that he can attend the ongoing Parliament session, a section of Opposition leaders demanded on the first day of the winter session on Monday.
Members of the European Parliament (MEPS) were allowed to visit Jammu and Kashmir after the Centre withdrew its special status in August, but leaders of opposition parties — and even those from treasury benches — were not allowed to visit the state, the Opposition side pointed out.
Abdullah, a member of the Lok Sabha from Srinagar, and other senior leaders of the Valley have been under preventive detention since the Centre’s August 5 move to nullify Article 370, which gave J&K its special status.
On Monday, two Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Rajya Sabha members, Fayaz Ahmad Mir and Nazir Ahmed Laway, held a protest inside Parliament complex against the nullification of Article 370. PDP leader and former J&K chief minister Mehbooba
Mufti, among others, have been kept in detention.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged that home minister Amit Shah misled the house in the previous session by claiming that Abdullah was not under detention. It is an “atrocity” not to allow the former J&K chief minister to attend Lok Sabha proceedings, he said.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader TR Baalu said, “What has happened with Farooq is illegal...you are custodian of the House...you have to make intervention.” National Conference MP Hasnain Masoodi pointed out that Abdullah was under preventive custody, and not under judicial custody. “Farooq sahab represents Srinagar and it is right of the two million people of Srinagar that their voice be heard in the House...i have proof that he is not in judicial custody, he is in preventive custody. Your one order can revoke it,” Masoodi told speaker Om Birla.
Saugata Roy, an MP of the Trinamool Congress, too said Abdullah should be freed immediately and a debate be allowed on current situation in J&K. Congress’s Chowdhury also targeted the government over the visit by 23
MEPS. “Our leader Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to visit [Jammu and Kashmir]; several MPS were sent back... whereas bhade ke tatu [hirelings] from Europe were being taken there. Isn’t it an insult to all MPS? I want to ask MPS of ruling alliance don’t they think it was their insult,” he said. India allowed a group of 23 MEPS, many of them from far right parties, to travel to Kashmir in October, in the first visit by any international delegation to the Valley after Parliament passed resolutions and laws to split J&K into two Union territories, J&K and Ladakh and scrap the special status accorded to the state.
The visit drew flak from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’S political rivals, who asked why a delegation of opposition leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, had been turned back from the Srinagar airport in the last week of August.
Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi said opposition MPS raising doubts about the situation in J&K is not sending the right message to international community. “The government is ready for debate on any issue, including J&K. Let them raise it through proper process,” he said.