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Updated: Sep 17, 2019 22:49 IST

In a sharp attack on the Centre’s Kashmir move, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that the government is trying to remove “nationalist” leaders like Farooq Abdullah to create a political vacuum in Jammu and Kashmir that will be filled by terrorists.

On Monday, former chief minister Farooq Abdullah was detained under Jammu and Kashmir’s stringent public safety law that gives the administration the right to detain a person without trial for two years. An order by the state government said the former chief minister’s residence will be treated as a temporary jail.

The Congress leader also added that the move will polarise the rest of India.

It’s obvious that the Government is trying to remove nationalist 🇮🇳 leaders like Farooq Abdullah Ji to create a political vacuum in Jammu & Kashmir that will be filled by terrorists.



Kashmir can then permanently be used as a political instrument to polarise the rest of India. — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 17, 2019

The Government should stop creating space for terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir and release all nationalist leaders ASAP. — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 17, 2019

“It’s obvious that the Government is trying to remove nationalist leaders like Farooq Abdullah Ji to create a political vacuum in Jammu & Kashmir that will be filled by terrorists,” tweeted Gandhi.

“Kashmir can then permanently be used as a political instrument to polarise the rest of India,” added Gandhi.

The former Congress chief urged the central government to release all leaders “ASAP”.

“The Government should stop creating space for terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir and release all nationalist leaders ASAP,” said Gandhi in another tweet.

The government through a Presidential order on August 5 scrapped Article 370, which gave Jammu and Kashmir its special status. Through the Jammu and Kashmir reorganisation bill, the now former state was divided into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The state has been under a security lockdown since then with all major leaders of the mainstream political parties placed under house arrest.

The leaders from Delhi have had to knock at the Supreme Court’s door for permission to visit Srinagar.

Yesterday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court allowed Congress leader and former chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, to travel to four districts in the region but barred him from holding any rallies or giving political speeches.

Azad recently approached the top court seeking permission to travel to Kashmir and raised concerns about the condition of common people. Azad was stopped from visiting Kashmir and sent back from Srinagar Airport three times in the past two months.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, also allowed Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, who was admitted at the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in New Delhi, to return to Srinagar.

Tarigami, who was under detention at his home in Srinagar, was shifted to AIIMS following a top court order on September 5.On August 28, the SC had allowed his party colleague Sitaram Yechury to meet Tarigami in Srinagar.