Farooq Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu Kashmir on Wednesday said in an interview that people from Kashmir do not feel and do not want to be Indian and might even want the Chinese ruling them. He also described Kashmiri people as ‘slaves who were being treated like second class citizens’ in an interview with The Wire.
The Centre says snapping the Article 370 had stalled the development of Jammu Kashmir, prevented proper education, health care and growth of industries besides not helping in curbing terrorism. Abdullah has been against the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that revokes Jammu Kashmir’s special status.
While responding to a question during an interview 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 and Article 370 should be restored for peace.”
Abdullah said, people in Kashmir ‘can no longer trust’ the government and 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 said.
“There are security personnel in every street carrying AK-47, where is the freedom?” he asked.
Abdullah further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ‘misled and deceived him’ before the constitutional changes in Kashmir were announced.