Farooq Abdullah’s PoK, J&K reality stirs debate

Former Union minister and president of the Opposition National Conference Farooq Abdullah on Friday stirred up a hornet’s nest by saying that Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir will remain with Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir will remain with India and people should accept it as a statement of realism.

“PoK is in Pakistan and will remain (there); Jammu and Kashmir is in India and will remain (here). We need to understand this,” he asserted. Dr Abdullah also said that war was not the solution, as people only lose their lives in it and that “dialogue is the only option”.

The NC president, who served as Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister thrice, said, “Let us be practical. The (then) Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told me that when he visited Pakistan, he gave the suggestion that Pakistan should keep PoK, but they did not agree. But now if we start talks with Pakistan again, they are ready on this formula.” He further said that India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars on Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947 but the ground realities did not change as PoK could not be salvaged in 68 years.

Reacting to his statement, Union minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said, “How can we forget in 1994 there was a unanimous resolution passed in Parliament on how to deal with Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir The position of the government has been very clear on this issue... there are no two ways about it.” The resolution passed unanimously in Parliament on February 22, 1994 had said, “The state of Jammu & Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India and any attempts to separate it from the rest of the country will be resisted by all necessary means.”

It demanded “Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression.”

In Muzaffarabad, PoK premier Chaudhry Abdul Majid said the held territory was the “base camp of Kashmir liberation struggle”.