- CM Abdullah leads a protest in Delhi demanding statehood for IIOJK.
- Police prevent protesters from holding a demonstration in Delhi.
- BJP calls protest attempt to divert attention from governance.
Hundreds of people led by the chief minister of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) shouted slogans and staged a protest in the capital Delhi on Monday, demanding statehood for the region, seven years after it became a federal territory.
Police prevented protesters from holding their rally, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a post on X, which had videos and photographs of people holding signs and shouting slogans.
“This is just the beginning of our fight for statehood, our rights, our dignity and everything that was taken from us,” Abdullah said in the post.
In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the occupied region's partial autonomy, stripped it of statehood, and divided it into two federally controlled territories: Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu-dominated Jammu; and a Buddhist territory of Ladakh.
The government has since said the statehood of the disputed Himalayan region will be restored at an “appropriate time” but has not set a deadline.
Abdullah and his party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, have said statehood should be restored as soon as possible, in line with the government's promise.
Leaders of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party say the protest is an attempt to divert attention from what they call governance failures by Abdullah's government.
