
Ahead of the District Development Council elections, Jammu-based IkkJutt Jammu on Friday declared itself a political party and said its goal is a separate Jammu state. The outfit also called for bifurcation of the Kashmir Valley into two Union Territories — one of them for Kashmiri Pandits.
“Our aim is to fight for a separate Jammu state for the political empowerment of its people,” IkkJutt Jammu chairman Ankur Sharma said. “Kashmir should be divided into two UTs without any Assembly to reverse the signs of genocide and to give justice to minorities. How can they return to Kashmir unless we give them a protected territorial zone to live there,’’ he asked.
Sharma described the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration as “a gang of anti-nationals who looted Jammu for past 70 years’’ and said they will be defeated in Jammu by IkkJutt Jammu and not the BJP. “They (BJP) are pushing anti-national rants through them in Kashmir to consolidate their constituency here in Jammu,’’ he added.
“I don’t consider political parties in Kashmir different from separatists… militants,’’ he said.
He attributed the decision to convert IkkJutt Jammu to a political organisation to “repeated betrayal of Jammu” by BJP and Congress.