Omar Abdullah said, "The accession was not a mistake. I do not believe India has irrevocably adopted this path. But it is a matter of concern"

The former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference vice-president, Omar Abdullah, on Thursday clarified the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Union of India was not a mistake. “No one could have predicted how things would pan out. Nobody could predict how things will play out. The accession was not a mistake. I do not believe India has irrevocably adopted this path. But it is a matter of concern. How can it not be? When you have processions outside mosques and there are slogans of ‘is mulk mein rehna hai to Jai Shri Ram kehna hai’ (if you want to live in this country, you will have to chant Jai Shri Ram), what do you think people will feel?,” Abdullah said while replying to the question posed by the Republic TV.

This is a day after he made a controversial statement regarding the accession, claiming "Jammu and Kashmir agreed to accession with India when we were told that all religions will be seen with equal eyes here. At that time, if it had been told that one religion would be given more importance than others here, then, maybe our decision would've been different."

Abdullah Addresses The Bulldozer Issue

“I am sorry, but when bulldozers are run over the houses of Muslims and television channel anchors are shouting that we might have to import bulldozers. What do you think people will feel when news anchors on top of those bulldozers ask them why only a wall was destroyed and why not the full building,” said Vice President of NC Omar Abdullah.

Omar, who was flanked by NC General Secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar, NC provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani and NC leader Tanvir Sadiq, disputed the Central government's normalcy claims in the Valley, saying that even congregational prayers are not being allowed at Srinagar’s historic Jamia Masjid. “If the situation is normal why not allow people to pray in Jamai Masjid. Normalcy isn’t only tourism. Normalcy is to live normally; this is evidence of an abnormal situation."

"The government is proving that situation in Kashmir is far from normal,” Omar Abdullah maintained while talking to reporters at the party’s headquarters, in Srinagar. Over the issue of one country and one language, Omar said, “India is too diverse to have one national language. When u pick up a currency note gives space to all the languages. It’s understood that we are more than one language and more than one religion,”.

“We must give space to everybody. If we do not impose a language in Jammu and Kashmir, why should anybody do it? Let people choose. Why should there be a national language? I do not think a place like India needs a national language, we do not need a national religion. We need to give space to everybody,” Abdullah said.