- CM Abdullah leads protest in Delhi demanding IIOJK statehood.
- Police stop protesters from staging demonstration in Delhi.
- BJP calls protest bid to divert attention from governance.
Hundreds of people led by the chief minister of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) shouted slogans and staged a protest in the capital Delhi on Monday, demanding statehood for the region, seven years after it was turned into a federal territory.
Protesters were stopped by police from staging their demonstration, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a post on X, which had videos and pictures of people holding posters and shouting slogans.
“This is only the beginning of our struggle for statehood, our rights, our dignity and everything that was taken away from us,” Abdullah said in the post.
In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked occupied region’s partial autonomy, removed its statehood and divided it into two federally controlled territories: Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindu-dominated Jammu; and a Buddhist territory of Ladakh.
The government has since said statehood to the disputed Himalayan region will be restored at the “appropriate time” but has not given a deadline.
Abdullah and his party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, have said statehood should be restored at the earliest, in keeping with the government’s promise.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party leaders say the protest is an attempt to divert attention from what they call are governance failures of Abdullah’s government.
