J&K Stayed With India Because it Was Secular: Farooq Abdullah

Former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah said Home Minister Amit Shah’s claims that he was not arrested is “totally baseless”.

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah. 

(Photo: PTI)

Hours after Home Minister Amit Shah told the Lok Sabha that former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Srinagar MP Farooq Abdullah is neither under detention nor has he been arrested, Abdullah told reporters that Shah’s claims are “totally baseless”.

“I am arrested in the house. Whatever the Home Minister says is totally baseless. I was not allowed to leave. Nobody is allowed to come into my house. I have a DSP posted outside my house.”

Farooq Abdullah told News18

He told ANI, “Why would I stay inside my house on my own when my state is being burnt, when my people are being executed in jails? This is not the India I believe in.”

He added, “As soon as the gate will open and our people will be out, we will fight, we'll go to the court. We're not gun-runners, grenade-throwers, stone-throwers, we believe in peaceful resolutions. They want to murder us. My son (Omar Abdullah) is in jail.”

“Farooq Abdullah Has Not Been Arrested”: Home Minister Amit Shah Reiterates

Shah had responded in the Lok Sabha when NCP’s Supriya Sule and DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran questioned why he was not present in the Parliament on a day when a crucial legislature pertaining to his state was being discussed.

Even as Abdullah said he had to “break the door” to speak to reporters, Shah reiterated in the Lok Sabha, “I'm saying it for the 4th time, & I've the patience to say it for the 10th time, Farooq Abdullah has neither been detained nor arrested. If he isn't well, doctors will take him to hospital. House shouldn't worry. If he wasn't well, he would not have come out.”

“Is this What We Deserve?”: Farooq Abdullah Breaks Down

Breaking down while speaking to reporters outside his house in Srinagar, Abdullah said, “How can India do this to a state which joined the nation on the basis of secular India, democratic India?This is not democratic India.”

On Monday, 6 August, former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, who were under house arrest since Sunday night, were arrested.

Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, on Friday, took to Twitter to slam the arrests of the top political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir, and wrote, “Arrest of Kashmir leaders short sighted and foolish, will allow terrorists to fill leadership vacuum created by govt.”