Srinagar : The J&K Conference vice president and party candidate for North Kashmir Baramulla seat Omar Abdullah exhorted people to strengthen NC’s hands in undoing the injustices commited on the people of Kashmir.
Addressing series of public meetings and road shows in Pattan and Tangmarg constituencies, Omar said, ” It is not easy and we cannot fight this battle alone, we need the full to advance this struggle of bringing back what was snatched from us undemocratically.” The public meetings in Tangmarg and Pattan were organised by Farooq Shah and Reyaz Bedar respectively. Omar also made brief stopovers at Zangam, Palhalan, Kongamdora, Hanjiora, Hardipora Shooru leading his campaign trail.
In his address, Omar said, “When we talk, we do not talk about anyone, when we do something, we do not do it for a specific group, region or religion. Whatever we do, we do it for everyone. When we created new administrative units here, new Nayabats, New Tehsils; it wasn’t meant to benefit a particular region or relion. We didn’t take those measures to benefit a particular sect. The measures were taken to benefit those who were in need. When I took the decision to do away with the verification and blacklist during my tenure, it was not for a particular section but for every citizen of Jammu and Kashmir. Our position was that the son or relative of a militant is not a militant and no person should be punished for the mistake of another person and we made the process of verification of youth easy, but today this series of blacklists is again haunting people. It started, today there is verification of a child whose distant relative was a militant in 1990, when this child was not born and therefore these children cannot get a job, neither can they get a passport nor can take loans from banks.” He further said that “today thousands of our youth are imprisoned in jails and most of them are those against whom there is no solid case. When we talk, we will talk about these thousands of youth. All these youths will be brought back here and after reviewing their cases, they will be released. But for this, we have to make this mark successful by first competing in the semi-finals and then the finals. The current parliamentary elections will be the semi-finals and the upcoming assembly elections will be the finals.”
Omar said, “Today our voice is being suppressed, after 2018, the rule of Delhi is directly running here, the opinion of the people here is not included in the governance and government decisions. The decisions of the people here are being taken by those who are not familiar with the ground situation, neither are they familiar with the geographical conditions here, nor do they understand the language of the people.”
He said that “after the abolition of Articles 370 and 35 A, big announcements were made but the people here did not get anything. The jobs that were promised to the youth are now being given to outside candidates, you will see only outsiders in any office. The people here have just sufferings and problems. We didn’t get colleges, we didn’t get schools, we didn’t get hospitals, we didn’t get jobs, no new factory was opened, no new factory opened, but liquor shops opened everywhere and then these people claim that People are satisfied and happy here. These people are selling liquor here like they are distributing water, I was shocked when I heard that a liquor shop in Kupwara earns 4-5 lakhs a day while an ordinary shopkeeper earns not more than 1000, 2000 or 3000.”
