Srinagar: National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Friday said “nobody can trust the government of India (GoI) anymore” and hit out at New Delhi for abrogation of Article 370 and downgrading of state into two union territories.
“Nobody can trust the government of India anymore. There is not a day when they don’t lie,” he said in an interview to NDTV. “This is not Gandhi’s India.”
The former three-time J&K chief minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not give them any indication of the move during their meeting days before the unprecedented August 5 move. Abdullah along with his son Omar Abdullah and NC MP Justice Hasnain Masoodi had met Modi in New Delhi.
“It just came out of the blue,” Abdullah said. “I had met the PM [Modi] a day before, he had given us no indication. I told him so many troops had been moved in, what was the need? Tourists were being pushed out, the [Amarnath] yatra had been cancelled. All this was strange…as if it was war with Pakistan or something.”
“When we asked the PM, he didn’t say anything. But he said other things that I don’t think I should say anything at this point. He was absolutely kind and nice and unbelievable.”
The veteran politician along with dozens of politicians were detained on the eve of abrogation of Article 370. Booked under Public Safety Act, he was released on March 13.
According to him, he “had to beg” to go to a dentist and to go to the hospital for an eye problem during his detention. “My phones were cut, the only thing I had was TV. Being an MP, I was supposed to have a phone. I wanted to speak to my daughter in England but I couldn’t talk to her,” he said.
Abdullah said he would like “humbly request the PM to be more honest and really face the facts. He knows what he did was not right.”
Asked why despite his talk about anger among the people of Kashmir, there was largely silence on the streets.”Well, because we, when we had the required declaration, we told the people, for god’s sake, don’t get killed. They had decided to kill nearly over 10,000 people. We were not wanting to get our people killed,” Abdullah said, adding that the coronavirus lockdown was another reason for deserted streets.
He also targeted the GoI for bringing foreign parliamentarians to Kashmir. “Delegations were stopped from coming here,” he said. “They got puppets from the EU [European Union], from the US to go around Dal Lake, have their Goshtaba and claim everything is hunky dory,” he said.

KR Desk