Outsiders being facilitated to take over locals in businesses: Farooq Abdullah
(ZNN TV) Jammu: National Conference President Farooq Abdullah has said that locals are being sidelined to pave the way for outsiders particularly in Jammu region of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a party convention in Samba, Jammu, he said, “People of Jammu are witnessing slow death to their exclusive jobs and those at the helm of affairs have brought the entire region to this appalling condition.”
Contending that Jammu’s local economy was being strangulated as outsiders were being facilitated to take over businesses in the region, Farooq Abdullah gave reference of the proposed opening of Retail stores here that has triggered anxieties among local traders.
“My Dogra brothers well understand that the assault on their trade is not a case in isolation. Everyone here in Jammu knows that such a measure is part of the systematic pattern to elbow out locals, the Dogras from the businesses and pave the way for the outsiders, who have already taken away a sizeable share in mining and other contract allotments, directly or indirectly, in the region after August 2019,” he added.
Farooq Abdullah further said that the uncertainty, unaccountability, unemployment and development deficit, which have gripped Jammu for the past eight years appear far from over.
“While the economy fast dissipated and development came to a grinding halt, the ever growing unemployment, inflation, development deficit, administrative inertia, wanton demolition drives seem to be the only notable feature of the current bureaucratic rule,” he added. The NC president reiterated his call of unity against the divisive and communal agenda being spread across India and J&K by forces inimical to communal harmony.
“People will inflict a collective punishment on communal and divisive forces, which are working day in and day out to liquidate the exclusive rights of diverse sections of Jammu,” he said. NC president also pooh-poohed Modi regime claims of peace and said, “The deteriorating security situation, everyday killings of grass-root level political activists, grenade blasts lay bare the ground realities and puncture the government’s peace claims.”