Farooq Abdullah bats for Internal Autonomy, calls for converting LoC into line of Peace & Goodwill

Strongly pitching for Indo-Pak dialogue, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday said internal autonomy to J&K within the framework of the Indian Constitution and the conversion of Line of Control (LoC) into ‘line of peace and goodwill’ were a pragmatic way forward to herald peace in the region.
“India and Pakistan should resume the dialogue process and engage people of J&K in an acceptable solution,” Farooq said while addressing party workers at Balakote in the Mendhar constituency of Poonch district. He said sagacity lay in acknowledging the realities and shedding the baggage of the past. The NC president reverted to the Indo-Pak hostilities in the 1990s and said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had invited President Pervez Musharraf despite the Kargil incursion and his political wisdom worked in terms of the ceasefire agreement, which brought cheer into the lives of border people for a pretty long time.
“Why can’t the Vajpayee spirit be emulated by his political inheritors,” he added. Farooq said the people of J&K had decided their future in 1947 by acceding to Mahatma Gandhi’s secular India and they would fight all machinations of reversing these well-established credentials by the polarising forces.
Meanwhile, addressing a public meeting at Mandi in Poonch district on Saturday, Farooq reiterated the need for Indo-Pak dialogue and said the LoC should be converted into a line of peace and goodwill to enable unhindered people-to-people exchange and trade between the divided parts of J&K.
He cautioned the Centre against taking the people of J&K for granted and ignoring their legitimate aspirations.
“Sooner the two nations appreciate the ground realities, better it will be for bringing warmth in the relations and ending hostilities of all sorts,” Farooq said, adding that the wars in the past seven decades had not changed the reality of the LoC. He said the border hostilities were detrimental to both India and Pakistan and any full-fledged conflict would lead to devastation and destruction in the region.
Farooq said his assertion over the LoC may be criticised and contested, but the reality could not be changed.