Jammu & Kashmir parties plan to regroup, defend special status and identity demand

Srinagar: The political parties in Kashmir on Monday claimed that they stand by the Gupkar declaration, a joint memorandum aimed at defending special status and identity of the erstwhile state of J&K signed a year ago on August 4, 2019. The leaders lament that they never got the chance to meet for a year now and form a strategy to decide the future course of action.
“We stand by the declaration but unfortunately we never got a chance to act on that. There is no political process going on in Kashmir and everything is frozen,” said Ali Muhammad Sagar, a former minister and NC leader.

The Gupkar declaration was signed at the residence of former J&K chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, when leaders from NC, PDP, CPI(M), People’s Conference, Congress and other political parties rushed to his house on August 4. Hours after the meeting all the leaders were placed under preventive detention.

“There is a state of leaderlessness and statelessness on ground in Kashmir. Everybody is living in fear and politics is absent on the ground,” People’s Democratic Party leader Wahid Parra told ET.