Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah

In a controversial statement, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah on Friday taunted the government saying Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) is not a personal property to be inherited. He questioned India’s claim on PoK and said that it isn’t its paternal property. “Kya yeh tumare baap ka hai (Is this your fathers’ property),” Abdullah was quoted saying by News 18 website. Addressing a function in the Chenab Valley in the presence of his son Omar, Farooq made the statement while referring to Parliament’s standing resolution on PoK. “PoK is presently under Pakistan occupation. It is not the personal property of India so that it could make a claim over it like an inherited property of forefathers,” Abdullah was quoted saying.

“Pakistan is one of the stakeholders (of the Kashmir issue) which even the government of India has accepted,” he said, adding that the government will have no option but to start talks with Pakistan so that the “atrocities through which people of Jammu and Kashmir are undergoing will come to an end.”

Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday said that autonomy to both sides of J&K was the solution to the end the nearly seven-decade major problem between India and Pakistan. “Borders cannot be changed but these can be made irrelevant and soft for people to people exchange and opening new vistas of trade and commerce for overall economic prosperity of the region. “We bat for autonomy to both sides of Kashmir and converting LoC-IB as soft border,” said Abdullah.

Earlier on Sunday, Farooq Abdullah, referring to the continuing disturbances between India and Pakistan, said that both the sides need to talk to each other. “War cannot bring solution, talks can,” Abdullah said.

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