Peoples’ Democratic Party leader and former chief minister of J&K, Mehbooba Mufti said that there is a need for peaceful struggle on the pattern of farmers’ protest in Jammu and Kashmir for the restoration of Article 370. Mehbooba Mufti is the Vice-President of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration, which is meant to peacefully seek the restoration of the erstwhile state’s special status and fight for the rights of the people in the restive region. Farooq Abdullah is the president of the Gupkar Declaration.

“After usurping the rights of people by removing Article 370, people here are frightened. There is a need for a peaceful struggle to strive for a resolution of the Kashmir issue and also for the restoration of Article 370. We have to initiate a peaceful struggle the way farmers have started in Delhi,” Mehbooba said talking to reporters in Baramulla after holding a convention with the party workers.

She further added, “The government has come up with a domicile law. It is imposing property tax and other taxes. It has reduced the age of retirement of employees to 48. It seems the government is out to break the economic prosperity of the people of J&K. They want to reduce people to very poor so that they will not talk about the Kashmir issue or Article 370.”

She described the “daily imposition of different taxes” as a conspiracy to spread poverty in J&K as a means to force people to give up talking about the Kashmir issue and Article 370.

“The government dismantles bunkers to show the envoys that there is normalcy when there are one million troops present here. They then take them to meet some selected people. After that, they seek assurance from the envoys in New Delhi that everything is normal in J&K. It shows that the government is also in a panic that whatever it has done in J&K and whatever it is doing in J&K is wrong,” she added.