Srinagar: Joint resistance leadership on Wednesday took a jibe at former Chief Minister and president National Conference Omar Abdullah on his remarks that separatists have no right to talk about Article 35A of the Indian constitution.
“Mr Omar Abdullah should understand that abrogation of Article 35A by the Indian state would result in change in the demography of disputed J&K where the UN is yet to hold the promised plebiscite and is a matter of serious concern for all Kashmiris,” said the Joint Resistance Leadership of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik.
They said that the outcome of abrogation of 35A will severely affect and dilute the case of right to self-determination of the people of Kashmir “for which people of Kashmir have been struggling and sacrificing for the past 70 years.”
The leaders also accused National Conference of changing “its goal” with time since its existence. “National Conference has been constantly changing its goal from autonomy to pre-1953 to self-determination and so on, as suits its only aim that is how to get to the chair and for that purpose it can go to any extent. It has excelled the art of changing colors like a chameleon, as its history of past 70 years bears testimony.”
They that it was in 1938 which changed the course of Kashmir history when late sheikh Mohammad Abdullah converted the Muslim Conference into National Conference.
“The conversion was an act of treason with blood of martyrs of 13th July 1931. Its purpose was to forge an alliance with the Indian National Congress in order to attain power,” they said. It was a decision, the repercussions of which people of Kashmir are facing for the past 85 years, “especially our generation next who are being mercilessly and systematically wiped out”, they said.
It was late Mr Sheikh Abdullah, they said, who being a peoples representative “coerced” the Maharaja to hand over Kashmir to India.
“He himself mentioned in his biography Aatash-e-Chinar that Gandhiji was not ready to send Indian army to Kashmir but he Sheikh sahib convinced him to do so in order to safeguard the ‘secularism of India’.”
Moreover, they said, when first Prime Minister of India Pandit Nehru promised before the world community that a plebiscite will be held in J&K to decide its future and the world community pressurized India and Pakistan to do so through various resolutions on it ,it was Sheikh Abdullah who in 1948 at UN Security Council opposed this demand .
“When the UN nominated Sir Owen Dixon as a representative to assess the holding of right to self determination, it was late Sheikh Abdullah who on 27th Oct 1950 decided to establish a constitutional assembly to legitimize Kashmiris accession to India.”
The joint resistance leaders also “reminded” Omer Abdullah that the former PM Indira Abdullah accord of 1975 was another “blow to the people’s resistance movement when late Sheikh Abdullah again let the nation down after decimating the Plebiscite Front and the efforts and sacrifices of those who stood by him when he was leading them in that direction.”
They said instead of sermonizing Omar and National Conference should fulfill their moral duty and responsibility to the people of Kashmir as pro India parties and get people of Kashmir out of the situation in which they are in because of them.