It’s Islamabad versus Anantnag in LA

Kashmir-based MLAs Wednesday took the right wing Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MLAs to task for criticizing the Congress legislator from Bandipora, Usman Majeed for referring to the south Kashmir’s Anantnag area as Islamabad.
During the obituary references, Majeed said the former minister Abdul Salam Deva, who had passed away hailed from Islamabad to which the BJP MLA, Ravinder Raina reacted saying the area is Anantnag not Islamabad.
Raina was supported by other BJP MLAs who said the official name of the area was Anantnag and the legislators should not refer to it as Islamabad.
However, the BJP MLAs were taken to task by the legislators from south Kashmir saying, “We live there and know the history of the place, and, so, let us decide what it is called Anantnag or Islamabad.”
They said the place was always called Islamabad and its name had been converted to Anantnag against the wishes of the locals.
Anantnag was referred to Islamabad even during Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh’s regime in Kashmir and the subsequent rulers including Gulab Singh and Hari Singh did not change the name of the place.
After the outbreak of militancy in nineties, troops used to beat people who referred to the place as Islamabad instead of Anantnag.
Even in a map made by a foreigner John Walker in 1930s, which has been preserved by the Department of Archives, the area is referred to as Islamabad not Anantnag.