Omar Abdullah is a jihadi

The point is that the angry, biased and half-separatist Omar Abdullah talked about his grievances against all of them.

On Feb 21, NC vice-president pro-autonomy Omar Abdullah criticized PM Narendra Modi and asserted that J&K was a Muslim–majority state and his co-religionists were being targeted across India just because they were Muslims. He also denounced Governor of Meghalaya Tathagata Roy for his tweet that urged Indians to boycott Kashmir and Kashmiri goods for some time and Governor of Rajasthan Kalyan Singh, who demanded the abrogation of Article 370, saying it promoted only separatism. Omar Abdullah, who questions the political status of J&K vis-à-vis India 24X7, defends separatists and pitches for dialogue with Pakistan, also didn’t spare even the Congress, which drove J&K out of the political organization of India in 1949 to appease his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah by granting special status to the state.

When 200 tents built for the pilgrims to Shri Amarnath Shrine were burnt by communal forces, Omar and his ilk did not even take notice of it

The point is that the angry, biased and half-separatist Omar Abdullah talked about his grievances against all of them. The upshot of his whole tirade against the PM and the London–founded Congress was that they didn’t condemn what he called the “systematic targeting of Kashmiris” (read Muslims) in various parts of the country following the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, which left 47 CRPF jawans martyred and many others injured.

Criticizing the PM, Omar Abdullah, inter-alia, said: “We didn’t have much expectation from the BJP but we had expectations from the PrimeMinister. We had hoped he would keep politics aside and say something…While the PM is silent, it is sad the country’s largest opposition party’s leadership also remained silent…There is a need to ensure the safety of Kashmiri students who have returned home fearing attacks on them…Arrangements should be made so they don’t suffer academic losses…

The people (Muslims) of Kashmir were expecting to hear two words of sympathy and moral support from the Congress…The country needs an alternative to the BJP, not BJP’s B-team (read Congress). I would expect and hope the Congress and all other like–minded parties and right-minded parties take a strong stand against this systematic targeting of Kashmiris…While the scale of the 26/11 attack was far greater than the Pulwama bombing, the people of Kashmir were experiencing the fallout…Why are we being punished? Just because we are the only Muslim-majority State in the country? Incidents of selective targeting of Kashmiris will lead to further alienation of people (Muslims) in the State”.

No sane person would ever support violence, but the question to be asked to Omar Abdullah and others of his ilk in Kashmir is: Are they not exclusivist and subjective in their approach and is their ultimate objective not to dismember India? Indeed, they are exclusivist, subjective in their approach and their ultimate objective is not just disintegration of India but also the establishment of Nizam-e-Mustafa and a regime that is of them, by them and for them.

Abdullahs and Muftis of Kashmir should stop giving sermons on secularism, democracy, brotherhood and peaceful co-existence. Religious cleansing of the whole Hindu community, the Dogras and the Punjabis living in Kashmir in 1990 happened through their connivance, collaboration, acquiescence, vicious and stony silence. When Hindus and other non-Muslims were being butchered and lynched, their houses and temples and shrines were being desecrated and destroyed across the length and breadth of Kashmir, the ilk of Abdullahs and Muftis maintained criminal silence and never felt guilty. When cold-blooded massacres of Hindus were unleashed in Kishtwar, Bhaderwah and Doda areas of Jammu province, the ilk of Omar and Mehbooba shut their communal eyes to the tragedy as if it was not happening. When National Institute of Technology Engineering students were beaten, harassed and humiliated for celebrating Indian victory over Pakistan in a cricket match in the campus of NIT Srinagar, Omar and Mehbooba remained silent. When Hindu transition camps in Kashmir were stoned to kill the hapless Hindus and attempts were made to flood them with water so that the inmates perished in a flood, Omar and his ilk kept silent. When 200 tents built for the pilgrims to Shri Amarnath Shrine were burnt by communal forces, Omar and his ilk did not even take notice of it. When the Muslim students from Kashmir studying in various educational and professional colleges of India free of cost on Government of India’s scholarships indulged in anti-India secessionist activities, Omar and its ilk never condemned such acts. They, in fact, silently supported sedition.

If the Government of India sincerely wishes to end Kashmir Jihad, it has no other option but to go in for internal surgical strikes calculated to dismantle the support structures of Jihad within J&K

Ikkjutt Jammu chairman Advocate Ankur Sharma is right when he on February 22 said: “Violent Jihad in J&K is conducted through the Pakistani flanks based in the state. The two regional Muslim parties – National Conference and PDP — have acted as Pakistan’s front line flanks in recent times. The Press Conference of Omar Abdullah seeking to claim J&K as a special preserve of the Muslims of the state was a brazen communal rant. Omar Abdullah claimed J&K as a sole preserve of Muslims because it is a Muslim majority area and threatened to rationalize Two-Nation Theory as a legitimate claim should clinch the whole issue”.

The view that “J&K has been converted into a Pakistan (Religious Theocracy) on the territory of India first by National Conference in alliance with the Congress, left and the Socialists, and subsequently pushed towards becoming an Islamist State by both NC and PDP” just can’t be described as silly and preposterous. One has also to agree with the view that “Articles 370 and 35-A, faulty and fraudulent delimitation, denial of minority rights to 6 million J&K non-Muslims and so many other regressive legislative and administrative measures have converted J&K into a theocratic non- democratic Muslim State” and that “this Muslim State needs to be dismantled as a first requirement to defeat the nefarious designs of Pakistan and this is possible only by throwing out Article 35A and 370 lock stock and barrel”.

It would be the murder of history if it is not said that it was the National Conference which in collaboration with the Congress initiated the campaign of destruction of Jammu and Ladakh just because they were not-Muslim majority areas. It must be noted that the entire administrative machinery and legislative stratagems were used to change the non-Muslim demographic character of these provinces. Jammu and Ladakh were converted into colonies of Kashmiri Muslim rulers. Every attempt was made to facilitate export of Jihadi Separatism from Kashmir into Jammu and Ladakh. It was during Omar’s time that thousands of Wahabi structures were built in Kashmir and elsewhere in the state. It is also clear that Omar converted NC into a Wahabi frontline instrument. And, who doesn’t know that it was only during the rule of NC, Congress and PDP that lakhs of Rohingya and Bangladeshi illegal Muslims immigrants were settled at strategic locations in Jammu and Samba districts.

If the Government of India sincerely wishes to end Kashmir Jihad, it has no other option but to go in for internal surgical strikes calculated to dismantle the support structures of Jihad within J&K; recognize Jihad as a total-war form unleashed since independence on the state of J&K; repeal of Article 370 and Article 35-A by Presidential notifications; recognize genocide of Hindus in Kashmir and commitment to reverse it permanently; recognize non-Muslims as minorities in J&K; evacuate the encroached state, forest lands and river-beds in entire Jammu province; and withdraw security cover of Abdullahs, Muftis, Lones and other of their ilk.

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Hari Om

Hari Om is former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Jammu.

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