Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Sunday said that the unconstitutional dismissal and arrest of Sher-e-Kashmir, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, on August 9th, 1953 marked the emotional rupture between New Delhi and Srinagar and the first tryst of JK’s people with the betrayal of trust.
The arrest of Sheikh Sahib on 9th August, 1953 from Gulmarg has left a scar on the Kashmiri psyche that refuses to heal, said Additional General Secretary Dr. Sheikh Mustafa Kamaal. “The fateful day marked an all-out attack on federalism in the country. The present sordid mess we are in is reminiscent of that era. Far from taking required corrections to remove the past foul memories, New Delhi made the entire third generation of Kashmiris relive that trauma,” he said.
Kamal said the unconstitutional dismissal and subsequent arrest of Sheikh Sahib also marked the wrong reading of his mind by New Delhi. “The attitude he held hasn’t changed over the years and that New Delhi isn’t still able to read the mind of a Kashmiri. The act of arresting a constitutional authority wasn’t a fraud committed on Sheikh Sahib, it was a fraud committed to scuttle the political aspirations and democratic rights of the people of JK,” he said.
Kamaal further said the unconstitutional dismissal and arrest of Sheikh Sahib had an adverse fall out in the shape of alienating Kashmiris who he held felt cheated. “It not only introduced rust into the administration in JK but also brought in the politics of deceit and immorality in New Delhi-Srinagar relations. Since then the same politics of impropriety has been pursued in J&K by New Delhi, which since 1947 has been making promises to Kashmiris only to break them flagrantly. Our expectations have from time to time been raised by “sky is the limit’, ‘Insaniyat, Jamhuriyat, and Kashmiriyat’ catch-words only to be dashed. August 5, 2019 decisions were the culmination point of the undemocratic, unconstitutional, immoral project of New Delhi in JK,” he said.
