BJP castigates Farooq's statement on Indian prejudice against Kashmiris

Bhartiya Janta Party has castigated the recent statement of the Union Minister and chief of the National Conference, Dr. Farooq Abdullah where the later has “urged Indians to shed prejudice against Kashmiris”. Vikram Sharma reports.

Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has castigated the recent statement of the Union Minister and chief of the National Conference, Dr. Farooq Abdullah where the later has “urged Indians to shed prejudice against Kashmiris”.

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Chaman Lal Gupta, leader of the BJP Legislators Party said, “It is not new phenomena that the persons like Farooq and some other Kashmiri leaders get Islamic in exploiting their religion in the Valley but become secular when they come down to Jammu areas and demonstrate as big nationalists after reaching at New Delhi and other parts of the country.”

In a statement issued here, he said this sounds that Farooq Abdullah sees that Kashmiris are not Indians but a different lot.

The BJP leader asserted that out bursts of Farooq or even of his father, late Sheikh Mohd Abdullah, and some others against India were not new as they have been exploiting their religion and misleading Kashmiris to cover up their own failures.

He recalled the ‘exploitation of the Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in 1952-53’, and said that when the National Conference leaders had become unpopular because of the failures of his Government in coming to the expectations of the people, the Sheikh and his colleagues started exploiting the religious sentiments of Kashmiris by raising the slogans of plebiscite and creation of Republic of Jammu and Kashmir within the Republic of India.

“But their exploitation was exposed by their own colleagues and these leaders remained in bewilderedness for 22 years,” he pointed out and said that things in Jammu and Kashmir are worsening again because the Omar led coalition is proving worse than even that of the earlier coalition of the Congress-PDP, especially that of the tenure of Ghulam Nabi Azad.

He also unfurled the historic facts about sacrifices the Indians including the nationalists of this State have made for the cause of Kashmir, adding that thousands of brave soldiers have sacrificed their lives to defend Jammu and Kashmir as part of the country and huge sums have been doled even at the cost of crores of the poor from Indian exchequer in the attempts to appease certain leaders of Kashmir.

The BJP leader has however warned the NC chief to restrain himself from using derogatory remarks for the Indians and instead use his towering stature in maintaining communal harmony in the state and country also.