Hakeem Irfan Rashid   

Ahead of article 35a hearing in SC on August 6-  Valley businessmen, politicians & separatists threaten agitation if Article 35A is revoked

The business community in Kashmir started a weeklong protest on Wednesday against the petitions in the Supreme court challenging the validity of Article 35A which grants special status to permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The protestors have found support from across the whole political spectrum in the Valley.

The next hearing in the case is on August 6.

The joint Hurriyat leadership has called for shutdown across the state on August 5 and 6. They have also threatened mass agitation if Article 35A was tinkered with in any form.

On Wednesday, around 27 prominent business foras held a silent protest march from Lal Chowk to Press Enclave in Srinagar, demanding that SC dismiss the case.

“If the decision in the court doesn’t come in our favor and the case is not dismissed everything will come to standstill in the state,” a prominent businessman, Mubeen Shah, told reporters during the protest.

“People of the state will shed the last drop of their blood to safeguard Article 35A,” Javid Ahmad Tenga, president of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told reporters here. The travel and tourism players, private school associations, fruit growers, transporters and other civil society groups have supported the strike call of Hurriyat and would organise protests in the run up to SC hearing on August 6.

“These few months are crucial for J&K and we have to be careful. The government in New Delhi can go to any extent to win elections,” a senior Hurriyat leader told ET.

The Hurriyat also convened a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the ‘negative impact of any imbalance in the demography of J&K which would open floodgates of Indian aggression.’ “People will be rendered homeless, jobless and will have strange fellows in their homeland as and when Article 35A and Article 370 are tinkered with,” read the statement issued here.

The regional pro-election parties, including National Conference and People’s Democratic Party, see it as a threat to their existence as they have always projected themselves as buffer between the state and New Delhi protecting the special identity of the state. Former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti has even gone on record saying that if special status of J&K was tinkered with, there would be nobody to hold Tricolor in the state.

Due to the sensitivity of the issue, J&K governor NN Vohra has also written to Union government suggesting that the hearing on Article 35 (A) should be deferred.

The BJP, which was in alliance with PDP till recently, said that the political parties in Kashmir were politicising a legal issue, which is sub-judice.

“Actually, they instigate the masses over Article 35A just to reap political benefits. People must understand that the matter was sub-judice and that holding protest is contempt of court,” former deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Kavinder Gupta told reporters in Jammu.

 Courtesy: Economic Times: 2 Aug 2018