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A visibly upset chief minister Omar Abdullah on Monday read out names of the 26 people who were killed in the terrorist attack and said he will not cite the Pahalgam incident to the Centre to push for Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood. On August 5, 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre had revoked Article 370 and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union territories—J&K and Ladakh. “The security in J&K is not the responsibility of the elected government, but I will not cite Pahalgam attack to demand statehood.
How can I push for statehood now. I don’t want such cheap politics at this stage. Is there no value of the 26 lives lost.
There is no demand of statehood, no business rules...
only solidarity with those who lost their lives,” he said while winding up discussion on a resolution on Pahalgam attack passed by the assembly. Omar said his government has talked about statehood with the Centre in the past and will continue to do so in the future, but the special session on Pahalgam attack was not the occasion. “This time there will be no politics.
.. curse be on me if I go to the Centre and push for statehood at this moment,” he added.
He warned those ‘peddling lies’ on social media in the aftermath of the terror attack. “While 90% of the people on social media are upholding the truth, 10% are trying to spread falsehood on social media. I warn them to desist immediately as we will not tolerate falsehood,” he said.
Earlier, he thanked lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha for his consent for the special session. The CM appreciated Peoples Conference (PC) chairperson Sajjad Lone for pointing out that names of the 26 tourists be mentioned in the resolution rather than sticking to statistics. “J&K has seen several attacks in the past, on Amarnath Yatra, camps in Doda, Pandits and Sikhs, but Baisaran attack has completely shaken us all.
I had no words for the families of those who lost their kin in the attack despite knowing fully that security is not my domain. But being chief minister and tourism minister, I had invited them (tourists) and had to send them back safe, which I couldn’t do,” he said. He recollected the disturbing images of a newly married woman sitting by the body of her husband after the Pahalgam attack.
“What was her fault? They had come to Kashmir for the first time. Those who did it, they say they did it for our welfare..
.but did we give our consent, our permission? None among us is with this attack. This attack has shaken us all,” he said.
The CM, however, said the people uniting against the attack was a glimmer of hope. “In the past 26 years, I never saw people coming out in such big numbers to condemn an attack. From Kathua to Kupwara, everyone dissociated from the attack.
No government asked them to come, they did on their own,” he said. “Terror and militancy can be wiped out only when people are with us, and this is the beginning. We shouldn’t take any step that alienates people from us,” he added.
The chief minister remembered the sacrifice of Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a local pony operator who was killed in the attack..
