Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, while reacting to the Supreme Court hearing of a plea demanding restoration of statehood in J&K, said that terror attacks happened there even when it was a state and that it happened because India does not have “good relations” with its neighbours.
He said that statehood is not responsible for terror attacks in the region.
“Nobody can undermine anything. These (terror attacks) happened even when it was a State. It is not as if just Statehood is responsible for this. This will happen because we do not have good relations with our neighbours. They (terrorists) come from there. If they are speaking of statehood and the Pahalgam attack, then they should remember that several incidents occurred during my tenure but it was a state at that time,” Farooq said while talking to media.
Also read: SC cites Pahalgam attack, seeks centre’s reply on J&K statehood plea
"We tackled it at that time...People are hopeful that the Supreme Court will take note of this and restore our rights, something which has been promised by the Government inside as well as outside the Parliament..." he added.
What Supreme Court said
{{/usCountry}}"We tackled it at that time...People are hopeful that the Supreme Court will take note of this and restore our rights, something which has been promised by the Government inside as well as outside the Parliament..." he added.
What Supreme Court said
{{/usCountry}}This comes after the Supreme Court cited the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack on Thursday while stating that it was the government’s prerogative to assess ground realities. The top court also sought a response from the Centre on a plea demanding restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir within a fixed timeframe.
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During the hearing, senior advocate appearing for applicants Zahoor Ahmad Bhat and Khurshaid Ahmad Malik, read from the Supreme Court’s judgement on abrogation of Article 370 dating back to December 2023 and argued that the court had refrained from deciding the statehood issue of Jammu and Kashmir only because the solicitor general had assured it would be restored after elections.
To this, the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran, replied that the Pahalgam attack that happened in the Kashmir valley on April 22 can not be ignored.
“You also have to take into consideration ground realities, and you cannot ignore what happened in Pahalgam in April. We do not possess all the expertise and there are some decisions to be made by the government,” the bench said.
During the April 22 Pahalgam attack, 26 people, most of whom were tourists, were brutally killed by terrorists.