Srinagar: National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have addressed the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood in his recent address to the nation.
Modi, in his Sunday evening address, focused on explaining the benefits of the revised GST reforms, which came into effect on Monday.
“You are talking about GST, but it would have been better if you (Modi) had spoken about our statehood,” Abdullah told reporters here.
When asked about the NC’s expectations regarding the Supreme Court hearing on the matter, scheduled for the second week of October, Abdullah said every citizen of Jammu and Kashmir is hoping for the restoration of statehood.
“Not just the National Conference, but everyone has hopes that we will get our statehood back,” he added.
On the case of JKLF chairman Yasin Malik, Abdullah said it is for the courts to decide.
“Courts make the decision. The court will decide that. We have no role in it,” he said. Malik, serving a life sentence in a terror funding case, was arrested in February 2019 and faces multiple charges, including the 1990 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed and the attack on IAF personnel at Rawalpora.
Abdullah described the governance situation in Jammu and Kashmir as “walking on a razor’s edge.”
“…but we have to walk on it and cannot step back,” he said.
Regarding the detention of AAP MLA Mehraj Malik, Abdullah acknowledged that while the legislator’s language was inappropriate, his detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) was unjustified.
“The words used by Malik were inappropriate—such language against an officer was unparliamentary. But the PSA was wrong. They could have resolved it through dialogue, but they didn’t,” he said, adding that the elected government has no power to revoke the PSA.
“We don’t have that authority; it rests with the lieutenant governor,” he noted.
