Former Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday demanded the restoration of the Instrument of Accession signed on this day in 1947.
She also termed the relationship of Jammu Kashmir with the rest of the country “illegitimate” after the erstwhile state’s special status was scrapped in 2019.“We don’t need a holiday on this day (accession day). We need a complete implementation of an agreement that has been promised and signed at the time of accession,” she said at the party headquarters here.
She said Jammu Kashmir’s accession with the Union of India was based on certain conditions which she said had been ruined with the scrapping of Article 370.
“If the instrument of accession is accepted, then abrogation of Article 370 is illegal and the relationship between J&K and Union of India becomes illegitimate,” she said.
On October 26, 1947, just after India and Pakistan got their independence, Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession with India, thereby ending the intense angling for that princely state by the two countries.
The PDP leader accused the BJP of ruining Jammu Kashmir. “Jammu Kashmir had acceded to India which was a secular and democratic country. We don’t want a Gujarat model and need the same secular India with which we (J&K) had acceded in 1947,” she said. She claimed secularism was thriving in the country before Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister.
“Earlier we use to have the Muslim President and Sikh PM in the country but since Narendra Modi had become PM, secularism has been badly hit. Muslims and Dalits are being targeted and lynched in the country,” she said.