NEW DELHI, Aug 17:
India can face China and Pakistan but the threat is from within the country as somebody is determined to spoil everything by dividing the people, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah said today.
The former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, while addressing a gathering of opposition leaders hosted by rebel JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav here, recited poetry and couplets to target the BJP in a veiled manner but took no names.
“India can face China and Pakistan but unfortunately today the threat is from inside, not from outside,” he said.
“Andar koi chor baitha hua hai jo hamara beda garak kar raha hai. Voh humaein bant raha hai (There is someone inside who is determined to spoil everything. He is dividing us),” Abdullah added.
“Earlier, we fought against the British but today we have to fight with our own people,” he added at the ‘Sanjhi Virasat Bachao’ (save our composite culture) programme.
Talking about Kashmiris, Abdullah said some people were trying to question their nationality.
“Who are they to ask us about our nationality? We Kashmiris chose India over Pakistan during partition because India guarantees equality. And I say it with pride that I am an Indian Muslim,” said Abdullah, who has also served as a union minister.
Expressing pain and grief over situation in Kashmir, he said, “Voh hum se kehte hain hum vafadar nahin, par afsos ki baat hai voh dildaar nahin (they say we are not loyal but sadly they are not large hearted).”
Abdullah said the people of Kashmir will stop complaining the day they are treated with a large heart.
“They are talking about unity but are they creating the atmosphere for it? They talk a lot but lack in action,” he said in an apparent attack on the rival BJP.
His comments came two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to Kashmiris in his Independence Day speech, saying their problems cannot be addressed by either bullets or by abuses but by embracing all Kashmiris.
Abdullah said his party workers, who were holding the national flag, were killed in 1990s but “today they tell us we are not Indians… There is no doubt that I am a Muslim and I say it with pride that I am an Indian Muslim.”
He said last year, an all-party delegation came to Kashmir to evaluate the situation there and also gave its report but nothing had been done on that. (PTI)
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