The government has booked former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti under Public Safety Act (PSA) for another three months and has done the similar extensions in the detention of many leaders including National Conference general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar. Only two prominent faces of Kashmir — Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah — have been set free and both have avoided talking about scraping of Article 370.
Omar Abdullah is treading cautiously and was quick to tweet after the death of Riyaz Naikoo, the most-wanted Hizbul commander and said that his killing should not be used as a cover for violence in Kashmir. Both Omar and his father Farooq Abdullah are trying their best to keep balance. Before 5 August, 2019, they had said that they would fight for the restoration of Article 370. But soon after their release both have maintained silence over the issue.
Omar Abdullah, briefly on Twitter, talked about elections and restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. A senior PDP leader said that the National Conference is a prominent face of mainstream politics and it will have to take a call on the issue of Article 370. He said that Mehbooba Mufti and even the leaders of National Conference like Ali Muhammad Sagar are categorical in saying that whenever they would be released they would fight for statehood.
According to senior political leaders in the PDP and the National Conference, elections can wait, but the struggle for the restoration of internal autonomy should start. They said that government agencies were trying to break the parties and make a new group in Kashmir to represent new aspirations.
Among those who have refuse to come out under any conditions from the detention include former BJP allay and minister Sajjad Gani Lone, former IAS-turned-politician Shah Faisal and many others. According to the political observers in Kashmir, in the coming months it would be very difficult for Farooq and Omar Abdullah to remain silent on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy.
However, Omar is keen for early elections in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and wants to have focused only on restoration of statehood. Mehbooba Mufti and her party are busy in forging an alliance with political forces in Kashmir Valley to start the struggle for the restoration of internal autonomy, the path the Abdullahs do
not want to tread yet.
