SRINAGAR: Dr Farooq Abdullah, the NC president and the five times Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir has said he is ready to get hanged if he is founded involved in the Kashmir Pandit migration. He has accused the then governor Jagmohan for the exodus.

1989- The then city police chief,Allah Baksh showing an AK 47 rifle to the then Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah.

“The truth will come out when you put an honest judge or committee in place. You will come to know who’s responsible. “If Farooq Abdullah is responsible, Farooq Abdullah is ready to be hanged anywhere in the country,” Dr Abdullah was quoted telling India Today in an exclusive interview. “I’m ready to stand that trial but don’t blame people who aren’t responsible.” He has said that the truth will come out only after an honest committee is in place.

Insisting that only a truth commission can reveal what happened to the Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and Muslims in Kashmir in the 1990s. “My MLAs, my small workers, my ministers – we had to pick their meat from tree-tops. That was the situation,” he asserted.

Dr Abdullah has held the then governor Jagmohan responsible for the exodus. “We cannot forget the then Governor [Jagmohan Malhotra] who put the Pandits in buses and said, ‘We will bring you back in two months because I have to use force on these people [insurgents] and the retaliation might impact you’. It has been 32 years. Where are the Kashmiri Pandits?”

Insisting that when Jagmohan was appointed, he found no option but to put in his papers. “The minute Jagmohan came, I gave up. I said, try and save the situation,” Dr Abdullah said. “You don’t trust me, trust him. On the very first day [of his rule], 50 people lost their lives. He was the man in charge. Was he able to save the situation?”

Dr Abdullah has suggested that the people who will offer details of the developments in that era are the chief of the Intelligence Bureau and the Arif Mohammad Khan who was a central minister at the time and now governor of Kerela. “If people want to know the truth, they can talk to the people who can tell them, like Musar Raza, who was my chief secretary, or Arif Muhammad Khan, who was a central minister at that time,” he was quoted saying

The Kashmiri Pandit migration is back in debate after Vivek Agnihotri’s Kashmir Files put the box office on fire and created new records. The Rs 13 crore film is about to cross Rs 200 crore collection in a record time. However, Dr Farooq Abdullah said that the film is propaganda. “It is a propaganda movie. It has raked up a tragedy that affected every soul of the state, Hindus and Muslims alike,” Dr Abdullah has said. “My heart still bleeds over the tragedy.” He said by extending the tax-free facility, the government wants to “further penetrate into people’s heart of hatred.”

Dr Farooq Abdullah said that the state government had caught five militants who were released by the central government in exchange of the Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughter of the then Home Minister, Mufti Sayeed. “When they [Centre] wanted to release five people whom we had caught, I refused,” Dr Abdullah said. “The Government of India was being led by VP Singh supported by the BJP.”

In response, BJP has taken a different route to attack Dr Farooq. They have taken a line from the Jammu and Kashmir Migrant Immovable Property Act that mentions its applicability to all people who have migrated starting November 1, 1989. Dr Abdullah resigned on January 18, 1990, suggesting he was in power when the initial migrations started.

“Omar claimed his father Farooq Abdullah was not responsible for the genocide. It was a lie. Here is J&K Migrant Immovable Property Act, introduced by Farooq Abdullah, in which 1Nov1989 is the cut off for exodus. What did he do for 79days, till 18Jan1990, when he resigned as CM?,” Malviya, who heads BJPs IT cell wrote on Twitter.

The Jammu and Kashmir Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on Distress Sales) Act, 1997 was enacted to provide for the preservation, protection, and restraint on distress sales of the immovable property of the migrants.

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