Incumbent upon PM Modi to safeguard Article 35-A: Valley trade bodies

The business community in Kashmir today said it was incumbent upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to safeguard Article 35-A of the Constitution if he was honest in his "deeds and words" to embrace the people of the valley.

Article 35-A, which provides special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is currently facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

The community said Modi should either get the petitions challenging Article 35-A in the top court withdrawn by the petitioners or to defend the provision by pleading for the dismissal of the case.

"It is an irony that Indian PM, who only few days ago swore of Kashmiriyat from the ramparts of Red Fort, is attempting a judicial onslaught on the same Kashmiriyat with the intention to change its demography for larger insidious political agenda," Abdul Majeed Zargar, spokesman of the joint forum of 27 trade, business and civil society organisations, told reporters here.

He said, "If PM Modi is honest in his deeds and words to embrace people of Kashmir, then it becomes incumbent upon him either to get these petitions withdrawn by the RSS-backed organisation or to defend his own constitutional provision in the Supreme Court."