Farooq extends NC’s support to struggle for Kashmir ‘azadi’

SRINAGAR: National Conference (NC) patron and former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has extended his party’s support to Kashmiri separatists in their “struggle for azadi” from India.
Urging the Hurriyat leadership to carry on the ongoing violent separatist movement, Abdullah said, “We’ll never be free until we are united (against India), and I am asking NC workers not to stay away from the movement.”
Addressing his party workers at the mausoleum of his father, the former chief minister Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, on his 111th birth anniversary, the NC patron said: “The flames will never die.They (New Delhi) will not give you anything. You should continue with this struggle.
We have given our entire lives for this movement.” “We are part of the movement; don’t take us as your adversaries, we are a part of you. We have fought the jihad. Be united, take this movement forward. Go ahead, we are with you,” he added.
“I am telling you from this sacred place, move ahead, we are with you till you tread the right path. And only you (Hurriyat leaders) can lead this nation on the right path,” Abdullah said, adding that his party was not ready to “tread on the wrong path”. Talking to mediapersons later, Abdullah said the ongoing unrest in Kashmir was a “people’s movement”.
“I never talk anti-national, but let’s admit that Kashmir is an unresolved issue since 1947. It is pending in the United Nations Security Council. Even the Simla Agreement makes it clear that the Kashmir issue will be addressed through dialogue between India and Pakistan.
One day, both the countries have to talk and resolve this issue,” he said. NC functionaries later issued a press release that said the party was willing to offer its support to anybody who set out to alleviate the suffering of the people and end the political turmoil in the state.