Hundreds rally in Delhi for statehood for IIOJK

Hundreds of protesters led by the chief minister of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) staged a protest in the capital Delhi on Monday and raised chants seeking statehood for the region seven years after it was converted into a federal territory.

In a post on X which contained videos and photographs of individuals waving placards and yelling slogans, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the police prevented protesters from demonstrating.“This is only the beginning of our struggle for statehood, our rights, our dignity and everything that was snatched from us,” Abdullah added in the post.

In August 2019 Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended the occupied region’s partial autonomy, stripping it of statehood and dividing it into two federally governed territories: Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu-dominated Jammu, plus a Buddhist area of Ladakh.

Since then, the government has claimed it will restore statehood to the disputed Himalayan territory at the “appropriate time” but has not set a timeline.

Abdullah and his party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, have maintained that statehood should be restored at the earliest, as promised by the administration.

Leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party claim the demonstration is an effort to shift focus from what they allege are governance shortcomings of Abdullah’s government.

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