Omar Abdullah slams calls for delaying J&K poll amid terror attacks

Samba/Jammu, July 21

National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah on Sunday said the spike in terrorist attacks in the recent past would be no justification to delay Assembly election, which were held even in 1996 when militancy was at its peak in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Some people are saying the situation has deteriorated and hence, there should be no elections. What happened to you? We held elections in 1996 and you have to agree that there is a difference of heaven and earth between the situation at that time and today,” he said.

“Those who do not want to hold elections should tell that we are bowing before the gun-toting forces and are accepting defeat, besides ignoring the sacrifices of our forces,” he said.

“If you want to bow before such forces then don’t go for the (Assembly) election. We have no objection because this election is taking place on the orders of the Supreme Court which has set a deadline of September 30.

“You say in the Supreme Court the situation is not conducive for holding Assembly poll and we are bowing before the forces who over the past (three) years martyred our 55 bravehearts. If you want to ignore and waste their sacrifices, we will bear the decision silently as there is nothing else we can do,” Abdullah told reporters on the sidelines of a public rally at Gurha Slathia in the Samba district.

He said there are such forces across the neighbouring country which do not want friendly ties between the two countries.

“We know they won’t desist from their activities but somehow we were also found off-guard,” he said, criticising Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha for delaying the joint high-level meeting held in Jammu on Saturday to chalk out a strategy to tackle growing terror incidents. Omar said the meeting should have been called a long time after the first terror incident. “Why he waited for so long? It was only after we started raising the concern, the meeting was convened,” he said.

Earlier, addressing a gathering, Omar Abdullah urged the people to open their eyes to the “worsening conditions” in the province, emphasising the importance of voting wisely in the upcoming Assembly election.

Omar said that BJP should have learned a valuable lesson from the recent Parliamentary election results, where they couldn’t even reach 240 seats. “This clearly indicates that the people in the country are dissatisfied with them. They made grand promises to the youth in J&K, claiming that Article 370 and the J&K flag were hindering their progress and job opportunities. Now we demand to know where those jobs are and where is the prosperity they pledged to our mothers and sisters,” Omar asked, saying that the people have finally seen through their facade.