- CM Abdullah leads protest in Delhi demanding statehood for IIOJK.
- Police prevent protesters from holding demonstration in Delhi.
- The BJP is calling for a protest attempt to divert attention from governance.
Hundreds of people led by the chief minister of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) shouted slogans and staged a protest in the capital Delhi on Monday, demanding statehood for the region, seven years after it was made a federal territory.
The protesters were prevented by police from holding their demonstration, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a post on X, which contained videos and photos of people holding posters and shouting slogans.
“This is just the beginning of our struggle for statehood, our rights, our dignity and everything that has been taken away from us,” Abdullah said in his message.
In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the occupied region’s partial autonomy, stripped it of statehood, and divided it into two federally controlled territories: Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu-majority Jammu; and a Buddhist territory in Ladakh.
The government has since said the disputed Himalayan region’s statehood would be restored at the “appropriate time”, but has not set a deadline.
Abdullah and his party, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, said statehood should be restored at the earliest, as per the government’s promise.
Leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party say the protest is an attempt to distract from what they call governance failures of Abdullah’s government.
