India's relation with JK will turn into that of 'occupation' if special status scrapped: Mehbooba

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti Thursday said that the country's constitutional relation with Jammu and Kashmir would turn into that of "occupation and colonisation" if the state's special status is scrapped.

The former chief minister has been raising the pitch on the issue in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, warning the ruling BJP of any attempt to tamper with Article 35-A and Article 370.

Addressing party worker's in Sangrama and Sheeri areas of Baramulla district of north Kashmir, she said that by "targeting Article 35-A and Article 370, the BJP is hell bent on converting the legal and constitutional relationship between J-K and the Union into a formal occupation".

"The relationship between our state and the country is based on our special constitutional position that legitimises it. If we remove, what legalises this relationship, it will turn into an occupation and colonisation," she said.

After filing her nomination papers from Anantnag Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday,Mehbooba had said the relation of Jammu and Kashmir with India will end if there terms and conditions of state's accession to the Union were changed.

"2020 will also be a deadline from Jammu and Kashmir to the nation. If you remove those terms and conditions on which Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India, our relation with the country will also finish," she had said.

The PDP president claimed that soon after the polls of 2014 gave a fractured mandate to political parties in the state, the BJP at that time pleaded before her father and PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to form a coalition government.

"You accepted our every condition and we took it in writing from you that you will not touch Article 35-A and Article 370. We took it in writing from you that talks will be held between Hurriyat and New Delhi and also enough surety that power projects will be returned from the NHPC to J-K," she said.

Mehbooba alleged that the BJP was trying to turn Jammu and Kashmir into a war zone "so that it could torture, harass, ridicule, intimidate kill people here for electoral gains".

Reacting to the highway ban order, she said it was reminiscent of martial law and that it will undermine all the good work done to restore peoples' faith in democratic principles and institutions of fair play.

She termed the order illegal and said it will be sternly opposed by the PDP.

Meanwhile, former IAS officer Shah Faesal, who recently floated his political party, termed the order as extremely shocking.