National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah on Monday, September 23, said that every person has the right to prove their innocence. His comments were a reaction to Union home minister Amit Shah’s recent statement where he said that no stone pelter or terrorist will be released in Jammu and Kashmir.
At an election rally in Nowshera, Shah alleged that the National Conference’s manifesto promises to release ‘stone pelters and terrorists’.
“They (NC-Congress alliance) want to release stone pelters and terrorists. Farooq Abdullah is talking about the revival of terrorism in Jammu hills but I want to tell them that this is the Modi government and we will bury terrorism in ‘patal’ (deep inside the earth). No terrorist or stone pelter will be released,” he said.
Reacting to the senior BJP leader’s statements, Abdullah highlighted the Centre’s act of keeping many people in jail without a proper trial.
“You have kept them jailed for 5 years, tell me how many of them had their crime proven in a court? Most of them are such against whom a case has not even been initiated to this day,” he said.
Referring to several such cases where prisoners are languishing in different jails across the country, Abdullah asked if anyone has been proven guilty so far. “All I would like to know is if a case has been registered against those who have been arrested, has their crime been proven in a court,” he said.
The National Conference in alliance with Congress will be fighting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the upcoming polls.
“When we cobbled an alliance with the Congress, we tried to reach an agreement on seat-sharing. There was an issue over some seats and both sides were rigid and the situation reached a point when we felt it (alliance) was not going to happen. But the coalition was worked out and we reached an agreement on most of the seats which we are now fighting together,” the former chief minister said at an election rally in the Khari area of Banihal on September 9.
According to the seat-share agreement, the National Conference is contesting 51 seats, the Congress 32 and the CPI(M) one. The remaining six seats will witness a “friendly contest” between the Congress and the National Conference.
Abdullah also claimed that the BJP would want a hung Assembly as it would give it an excuse to extend the lieutenant governor’s rule.
Jammu and Kashmir saw its first Assembly election ever since the abrogation of Article 370 and the clipping of statehood.
Elections are being held in three phases with the first phase, September 18, witnessing a voter turnout of 72.20 percent. The Union territory will go for polls on September 25 and October 1. The results will be declared on October 4.
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