Jammu and Kashmir National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah on Saturday met tourists in Pahalgam and asserted Kashmir was and will always be a part of India.
Speaking to reporters, after the Pahalgam terror attack, the biggest message is that the tourists are “not scared.”
“The people who wanted to spread fear have lost. They (terrorists) have lost. It has been proven today that we are not going to get scared. Kashmir was and will always be a part of India. People want terrorism to finish. It has been 35 years since we have seen terrorism; we want progress. We want to move forward. We will become a superpower one day,” Abdullah said.
Meanwhile, Farooq Abdullah refused to give importance to the statements made by former Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, saying that the country can’t move forward if attention was paid to Bhutto’s remarks.
“If we go by Bilawal Bhutto’s statements, we cannot move forward. I have been saying for a long time that the Indus Water Treaty should be reviewed again. Our rivers and we are the ones who are deprived,” Abdullah told reporters here.
Abdullah’s remarks came after former Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto acknowledged his country’s tango with terror operatives, saying that Pakistan has a past.
The JKNC chief and NC MLA Altaf Kaloo also met Hyder Shah, the father of Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a local who died in the Pahalgam terror attack while trying to save the tourists.
“Farooq Abdullah shared our grief and gave us courage in our sorrow, which is helping us move forward,” Hyder Shah said.
Earlier today, India has imposed an immediate ban on the direct or indirect import and transit of all goods originating in or exported from Pakistan, regardless of their import status, effectively halting bilateral trade flows, according to a notification by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The Commerce and Industry’s Gazette notification issued on Saturday reads, “In exercise of power conffered by Section 3 read with Section 5 of the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act, 1992, read with Paragraph 1.02 and 2.01 of the Foreign Trade Polivy (FTP) 2023, as amended from time to time, the Central government hereby inserts a new Para 2.20A in the Foerign Trade Policy, 2023 as follos with immediet effect.”
The move comes amid the growing tension between India and Pakistan following the dastardly attack in Pahalgam in which 26 tourists lost their lives.
Following the terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people, the Central government announced several diplomatic measures, such as closing the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari, suspending the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) for Pakistani nationals, giving them 40 hours to return to their country, and reducing the number of officers in the High Commissions on both sides.
India has also halted the Indus Waters Treaty signed in 1960 in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. (ANI)
