Farooq lashes out at BJP for skipping martyrs day function
Former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) president, Farooq Abdullah, today slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for skipping the function to pay homage to the martyrs who laid down their lives fighting against the autocratic Dogra rule.
After paying tributes to the martyrs here, NC President said that the July 13, 1931, massacre was carried out in Dogra Raj. He took a dig at BJP for playing the vote bank politics over the issue.
“The massacre was carried out during the Dogra Raj and how can the BJP legislators come here to pay homage. Their vote-bank lies in Jammu. It is obvious they wouldn’t accompany the ally PDP,” said Abdullah, while referring to Jammu areas where majority of the Dogra people live. He said that the coalition partners have come together “just for chair” and the PDP and BJP remain ideologically split.
BJP has skipped the official function for the third consecutive year. The party maintains that it doesn’t believe in such events. On July 13, 1931, 22 people were killed in firing by the forces of Maharaja Hari Singh outside the Srinagar Central Jail, where an in-camera trial of Abdul Qadeer, a freedom fighter, was being held. The crowd was protesting in central jail against the detention of Qadeer when the forces of Maharaja opened fire.
Abdullah said that by skipping the 86-th Kashmir martyrs day function, the BJP has proved that it was “only there to stay in power and loot the state and has got nothing to do with the people of the Kashmir Valley.’’ “It is obvious. They have nothing to do with this. They are only here to stay in power and loot the public of Jammu and Kashmir,” Abdullah told reporters.
He added that July 13, 1931 was a watershed moment in the history of Kashmir and marked the beginning of a struggle against “ tyranny, oppression and despotism.’’ He paid tributes to the martyrs on 86 th Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir, which celebrates the sacrifice of “valiant people’’ who stood against the autocratic functioning of Dogra rulers. To commemorate the day, the pro-freedom leadership had planned a rally which was however disallowed after clamping strict restrictions across Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir.
Former CM said that the skipping of the martyrs day function betrayed the deep conflict on ideological lines between PDP and BJP, whose leaders are only clinging to chair.
He said that the martyrs represented an epitome of the struggle that the people of Kashmir have fought against the Dogra era rulers.
KV Correspondent
