Equating the Centre’s decision to abrogate Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 with the 1947 invasion of the state by tribal warriors, the National Conference (NC) on Saturday dubbed the move an “aggression”. The party also termed August 5, the day when Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was revoked, a black day in the state’s history. On this day, the Centre had also announced its decision to bifurcate the state into two Union territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. “The unilateral and immoral act of backtracking on the constitutional assurances to the state by New Delhi is the same as tribal invasion of Kashmir following the freedom from imperialists. The insidious tribals cared the least about the aspirations of the people the state,” NC Lok Sabha members Muhammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi said in a joint statement. “The act of unilaterally back tracking on the constitutional assurances is no less than an aggression on the state,” the statement said. With the scrapping of Article 370 and Article 35A, the Centre has permanently branded itself as “undependable and deceitful”, the MPs said. The statement said the decision had played with the honour of the state’s people. Lone and Masoodi said the people of the state will never allow the “treacherous onslaught of New Delhi” on the state’s identity to annihilate its character. “The stealing of state’s rights through unilateral and unconstitutional means is no less than an aggressive deceitful conquest and thievery,” they said. The NC leaders also rubbished the Centre’s claims that doing away with the state’s special status and bifurcating it into two Union territories would open new vistas of development. “By that analogy many of the eastern states should be degraded to Union territories… the people of the state (Jammu and Kashmir) live a much better life than others living elsewhere in India,” they said.
