Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Congress president Farooq Abdullah sparked yet another controversy when he hoped for China’s support in restoring Article 370 in the valley. In an interview with 'India Today', Abdullah said that the Modi government’s move to abrogate Article 370 which granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, had angered China and the recent aggression at Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a result of that.
"Whatever they are doing at LAC in Ladakh is all because of the abrogation of Article 370, which they never accepted. I am hopeful that with their support, Article 370 will be restored in J&K," Abdullah said. “As far as China is concerned, I didn’t bring the Chinese President here. Our Prime Minister invited him to Gujarat and even did jhoola sawari with him. He [PM Modi] even took him to Chennai and had food with him,” added Abdullah.
This is not the first time when Abdullah had made a provocative remark seen by many as being against India. In a recent interview with The Wire, he said that the Kashmiris felt like ‘slaves’ in India and they would rather have the Chinese rule over them.
The Centre, on August 5, 2019, revoked Article 370 of the Constitution. It said that Article 370 had halted the development of the state, prevented proper education, healthcare and growth of industries and also did not help in curbing terrorism in J&K. Soon after the revocation, the government imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the Valley prohibiting more than five people to gather at one time in a particular place and placed Abdullah under preventive detention for 221 days.
Nearly all of Kashmir’s mainstream political leaders were detained on August 5, 2019, hours before Parliament nullified Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state into two union territories. After being incarcerated for months, Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, both former chief ministers, were released on March 13 and March 24, respectively.
