Addressing a thinly-attended but politically significant public rally in south Kashmir’s Tral town, once a hotbed of militancy, Omar Abdullah justified ruling National Conference leadership’s decision to flee the Valley in early 1990s to pave way for the then emerging separatist leadership to make a breakthrough on resolution of Kashmir issue.
The NC leaders, especially president Farooq Abdullah, fled the State along with his family in 1990 for six years when the State was going through the most terrible phase. Even as militants targeted a large number of NC workers and sympathisers, the NC’s detractors describe the decision to leave the State as cowardice.
Omar lashed out at moderate Hurriyat for returning to demands of electricity and infrastructural development after 25 years of bloodshed and destruction. “They (separatists) have not been able to deliver anything other than creating bloodshed and bundles of difficulties for people. Their claim of changing the system and the flag of the State proved totally a failure and they were not able to remove even a bunker from the State not to talk of changing the system,” he said. “Now, they are talking of scarcity of electricity and construction of infrastructure,” he said without naming Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, head of moderate Hurriyat Conference who has started lambasting the coalition Government on its failures to provide basic amenities to people in Kashmir.