Former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday, September 23 said in an interview to an online portal said that at this moment people of Kashmir do not feel as Indians and would rather prefer to be ruled by the Chinese.
In reply to a question in the interview on the mood of people in the Valley, Farooq Abdullah said, “To be honest, I wonder whether they (government) will find someone who will call himself an Indian…You go and talk to anybody they don’t want to know, not Pakistanis let me be very clear about it, but they don’t feel Indian and us who have to speak, I wonder whether we will survive.”
“What he (Prime Minister Modi) did on August 5 was the last nail in the coffin,” Farooq Abdullah said.
He said it was easy for people of the Valley to go with Pakistan during partition, but they “joined Gandhi’s India and not Modi’s India.”
“Today China is advancing on the other side, many if you talk to them, they would rather have Chinese coming in. Whatever one may say, they know what Chinese have done to Muslims in their region. I am not serious, but I am honest about it. I am honestly telling you what people don’t want to hear. They would rather not go to Pakistan because everything is rust”. He further said.
He said that “revoking of Article 370 had halted the development of the state, prevented proper education, health care and growth of industries and also not helped in curbing terrorism in J&K. Soon after the revocation, the government imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the Valley prohibiting more than five people from gathering at one time in a particular place”.
Farooq Abdullah claimed that if he says anything about India anywhere in the Valley, there is no one to listen to him. He said, ‘Security personnel carrying AK 47 are standing in every street there. Where is freedom?
Farooq Abdullah said that “if the Army troops were lifted from the streets of Kashmir, people would come out in huge numbers to protest against the move”.
The Central Government on August 5, 2019, amended Article 370 that granted a special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
