Jammu:

Three youths were injured in a knife attack incident on Sunday at an election rally of the National Conference (NC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district.

The incident happened when the NC chief and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was present at the venue along with the party candidate.

“There was an election rally by NC in Mendhar area of Poonch district today in which NC president, Dr Farooq Abdullah and party candidate for Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat, Mian Altaf Ahmad were also present. A fight took place between two groups on the sidelines of the rally in which three youths sustained knife injuries,” said officials.

“The injured youths were shifted to a government medical college hospital in Rajouri town for specialised treatment. Doctors have described the condition of one of the injured identified as Suhail Ahmad of Mendhar as serious. The other two injured youths admitted to the hospital have been identified as Yasir Ahmad and Imran Ahmad,” the officials further said.

These two injured youths — Yasir Ahmad and Imran Ahmad — fled from the hospital. The officials said, “They fled the hospitals for unknown reasons.”

A case has been registered in this incident and police have started an investigation.

“No arrests have been made so far in this incident,” the officials said.

Meanwhile, people started protests against the incident in Mendhar Chowk and authorities were trying to pacify the protesters.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Srinagar:

National Conference leaders of the party’s Kargil unit resigned en masse in Ladakh today over the choice of the INDIA block candidate in the region.

The party leaders submitted their resignations to party president Farooq Abdullah after they were allegedly pressured by the party’s high command to support the Congress’s candidate Tsering Namgyal.

The mass resignation came hours after Farooq Abdullah warned party leaders in Kargil of disciplinary action if they failed to abide by the party’s decision to support INDIA block candidate Tsering Namgyal.

“NC President Dr Farooq Abdullah has directed the Kargil unit of the party to support the INDIA bloc candidate – T Namgyal in the Lok Sabha election for the Ladakh seat. He has told his colleagues that failure to follow this directive will be seen as a serious breach of party discipline” the party posted on X.

Congress leaders in Kargil have already raised a banner of revolt against the party over the choice of the candidate.

The rebel leaders of the NC and the Congress have fielded a candidate backed by all the religious and social groups of Kargil.

Behind the controversy is an old political rivalry between Muslim-majority Kargil and Buddhist-majority Leh districts of Ladakh.

As the Congress declared Tsering Namgyal as its official candidate, Congress and NC leaders in Kargil opposed the move and declared Haji Haneefa Jan as their candidate.

Mr Jan is the district president of the National Conference in Kargil and was chosen as a consensus candidate by the local leadership of both the Congress and the NC.

Islamia School and the Khumaini Trust – the two powerful socio-religious institutions of Kargil – backed Mr Jan and ensured no other candidate from Kargil was contesting to avoid a split of votes.

Ladakh will vote on May 20 to elect the lone MP from the Union Territory. These are the first elections in Ladakh since the abrogation of Article 370 split the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Votes will be counted on June 4.

Srinagar:

Weeks ahead of the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, Jammu and Kashmir has joined the list of states where INDIA allies are contesting against each other. The Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decided to go solo in Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir.

Announcing the decision at a press meet, Ms Mufti said her party will contest the three seats in Kashmir Valley and will soon take a decision on contesting the two parliamentary seats in Jammu. She also hit out at ally National Conference for its “unilateral” decision to contest all seats in Kashmir.

The move comes after National Conference announced that it will contest all three seats in Kashmir and named Mian Altaf as its candidate from Anantnag-Rajouri seat.

Hitting out at National Conference and its leader Omar Abdullah, she said, “The National Conference and Omar Abdullah didn’t leave any option for us.”

She said the need of the hour was for political parties in Jammu and Kashmir to remain united. But the attitude of the National Conference leadership was hurtful, she said. “When the INDI alliance’s meeting took place in Mumbai, I said there that since (NC president) Farooq Abdullah is our senior leader, he will take a decision (on seat sharing) and will do justice. I had hoped he would keep the party interests aside,” she said. But the National Conference decided to contest all three seats in Kashmir unilaterally, she added.

Ms Mufti said that if the National Conference had consulted the PDP before announcing the decision, her party could have decided not to field candidates in the larger interest of Kashmir.

“If they had to take the same decision, if they thought that they had a better voice than the PDP to raise the issues of the people of Kashmir, then they should have told me two months ago that they wanted to contest themselves and told me not to field candidates, then perhaps, for the larger interest, we would not have contested,” she said.

“But, the way Omar (Abdullah) announced the decision without taking us into confidence, it hurt my workers and broke their hearts,” she added.

The National Conference last month announced that it will be contesting all Lok Sabha seats in the valley.

In a press meet yesterday, Omar Abdullah had slammed the media for trying to create a rift between National Conference and PDP.

“Why are you making the PDP fight us? Has the PDP said anywhere that they will contest elections? It is you people who are fuelling this. I heard the speech of Mehboba Mufti in Delhi, she said Farooq sahib and we are together and we will not break the INDIA alliance. Why are you trying to make us fight?” he asked.

He also said the National Conference’s decision to contest all three seats in Kashmir was based on who won the previous elections.

This puts the Congress in a tricky spot. Now it must decide whether it will support the PDP or National Conference. The PDP’s decision will also add a punch to the BJP’s campaign against the INDIA alliance over the bloc’s members taking each other on in multiple states, including Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal.

Jammu:

After People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti expressed unhappiness over the National Conference’s decision to contest all three Lok Sabha constituencies in Kashmir, NC President Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said both parties are part of the INDIA coalition. He asserted that his party would win all three seats in Kashmir for the alliance.

Mehbooba Mufti had on Friday said that the NC’s decision was “disappointing” and a “setback to the hopes of the people of J&K”. She also accused the NC of reducing their Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) to a “joke”.

“I do not know what she (Mufti) had said… National Conference stands on its own feet and has won three seats (in the 2019 general elections). We are part of the alliance and she is also part of the alliance. If the National Conference wins (these seats) again, they will win it for the INDIA alliance and so what is the problem,” Mr Abdullah told reporters here.

The NC leader said he is sure that the INDIA alliance will always grow because it is needed “for the future of India and democracy”. He said that “everybody wants a secular India where we all can live in peace, harmony and progress”.

“India is for all. India is not Pakistan. The Constitution of India was framed on the lines that we are all one. How does it matter what religion you follow, what language you speak and what your culture is? It is a united India,” he said.

Asked about Mehbooba Mufti’s remarks on PAGD, he said assembly elections are coming and “we will see what we will do. I am sure they (BJP-led government) will try to hold the assembly polls with parliamentary elections.”

The NC has announced the party would contest the three seats in Kashmir valley and asked the Congress to contest the two seats in the Jammu region. The party also said there would be a consensus candidate of NC and Congress on the Ladakh seat.

Jammu and Kashmir has five Lok Sabha seats, while Ladakh has one. In the last elections, while the NC won the three seats in Kashmir, the BJP won the two Jammu seats as well as the lone Ladakh seat.

On PAGD, Ms Mufti had said on Friday that it was “difficult to see the unity break”.

“I regret that what we nurtured for five years has been shattered,” she said. The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said that had the NC leadership discussed the issue with her, the PDP could have let the NC contest on all three seats in the valley.

However, she said the PDP was still a part of the INDIA bloc and the party would discuss the future strategy with the Congress.

Asked about the formation of a new government in Pakistan and its possible approach towards India, Mr Abdullah on Saturday said Islamabad has to decide whether it wants peaceful relations with India or not.

“What Pakistan does, is their problem. It is their nation and it is for them to decide whether they want to live in peace with our nation or they don’t want to live in peace.

“Kashmir was acceded to India by Maharaja Hari Singh and that accession is even today and that will last forever,” he said, adding, “We are part of India and there is no problem for us. It is for them to decide what they want to do.”

To a query on Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s statement likening Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Adolf Hitler, he said, “I do not know what he had said and under what conditions”.

“He (Modi) is not a Prime Minister of the BJP. People who voted for him are just 37 per cent but once one becomes a Prime Minister, he represents every Indian. He also represents 1.4 billion when he goes outside the country.

“He represents Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and every other religion, and those who have no religion,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinians check the place of the explosion at al-Ahli hospital, in Gaza City, on October 18, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

As many as 30 Muslim bodies under the banner of Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU), headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, on October 18, condemned the bombing of a hospital in Palestine’s Gaza “in an Israeli air strike”. The National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also expressed their concern.  

A spokesman of the MMU, in a joint statement, said the religious groups express “shock and outrage” at the bombing of a hospital in Gaza”, which left around 500 Palestinians, including children, dead.

Gaza’s doctors struggle to save hospital attack survivors as West Asia rage grows

“People of Jammu & Kashmir are deeply saddened as well as pained by this unfolding tragedy and stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine. The massacre of Palestinians at the hospital is a blatant war crime under United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions,” the spokesman said.

The MMU urged the United Nations and the world powers “to move beyond blame game and partisanship”. “They need to see what is happening in Gaza, for what it is, a humanitarian crisis . The war against hapless Palestinian citizens should be stopped and a resolution to this long-term conflict immediately sought, which restores the rights of Palestinian people to their life and land,” it said.

Joining the condemnation, former J&K chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, in a post on X, said, “A tragic reminder of what must have happened during the Holocaust. Perhaps the only difference is that the very community that the victims belonged to are now the oppressors and gas chambers have been replaced by bombs. Half of the world’s terrorism is a reaction to the unresolved issue of Palestine. Will the powers that be continue being mute bystanders or wake up to the grim reality so that innocents aren’t killed anymore?”

Former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister and NC president Dr. Farooq Abdullah expressed concern over India’s “meek stand”. “India since (former Prime Minister) Jawaharlal Nehru’s time supported Palestine and stood against oppression of Palestinians. It’s unfortunate the same voices do not come forward to Palestine’s support in India anymore. History stands witness that Jews took over the land of Palestinians in Palestine and expanded their territory,” Dr. Abdullah said. 

Srinagar:

Around 77.61 per cent voting was recorded on Wednesday in the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council elections in Kargil, the first key poll to be conducted in Kargil district of Ladakh as Union Territory (UT) after Article 370 was scrapped in August 2019.

The votes will be counted on Sunday. As many as 85 candidates are fighting for 26 seats.

During the polling most of the voters talked about identity issues post scrapping of 370 and absence of democratic representation under Union Territory administration.

“We are angry because Modi has separated us from Kashmir in 2019,” said Zehra Bano.

Seventy-year-old Zehra was part of large number of women in Kargil who came out to vote.

Another voter said that they want to be reunited with Jammu and Kashmir and Union Territory experiment has failed to deliver.

“we want statehood back. We didn’t get anything under UT and our children are unemployed,” he said.

The contest is between the BJP and the National Conference-Congress combine. The vote is being looked at as a referendum – if the people have accepted the Centre’s decision of August 5, 2019.

At a poll rally, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had urged voters to send a “clear message to reject or accept” the decision made by the NDA government on August 5, 2019.

Kargil has long been a National Conference stronghold.

Two powerful religious institutions – the Jamiat Ulema Kargil, known as the Islamia School, traditionally backing the National Conference, and the Imam Khumaini Memorial Trust backing the Congress – are driving the politics in Kargil.

Earlier, the Ladakh administration had denied the “plough” symbol to National Conference candidates which led to a legal battle, with the Supreme Court setting aside the Ladakh hill council polls, earlier scheduled for September 10.

Over the last three years, political parties, social and religious groups in Ladakh have forged an alliance opposing Ladakh’s UT status and demanding full statehood and constitutional protection under the 6th schedule. The rare political alliance between Buddhist and Muslim groups in Leh and Kargil districts is posing a major challenge to BJPs electoral prospects in Ladakh.