'Time for amicable divorce': Sajad Lone seeks Kashmir's separation from Jammu

Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference president Sajad Gani Lone. (File Image)

• Sajad Lone calls for "amicable divorce" between Kashmir Valley and Jammu region
• Lone criticizes Jammu's opposition to Kashmir projects, citing Law Uni dispute
• He claims rising desire for separation amid Jammu and Kashmir tensions.

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Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference president Sajad Gani Lone on Wednesday made a striking and unprecedented call for an "amicable divorce" between the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region, stating that the longstanding administrative arrangement in the Union Territory needs reconsideration as regional tensions mount.

"Maybe time has come for an amicable divorce. It is not only about developmental matters. Jammu has become the proverbial stick to beat the Kashmiri with," Lone, the sitting legislator from Handwara, said in a press statement on Wednesday.

"At the remotest opportunity they set up a stall to sell Jammu grievances. And when the Union government took away everything from them, diverted business, even took away Darbar move, they dare not protest. Their valour is visible only against their own Kashmir region," he said, adding that disagreements over development priorities and political representation have widened the fault lines between the two regions.

"If Kashmir is to integrate with the rest of the country, it will have to be done without the thrusted service of touts. We cannot have a region slandering Kashmiris non stop and petitioning the rest of the country that only one region in J&K is with the country and that the other region is a terrorist region," he added. Notably, Lone is the first mainstream Kashmiri political leader to publicly advocate such a separation.

Lone's remarks were linked to a simmering dispute over the proposed National Law University in Budgam district with critics in Jammu demanding its relocation to their region. In his statement, Lone asked Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to honour his electoral promise to establish the university in Budgam. "The sanctity of the institution of CM demands that he live up to his promise and keep it there."

Lone also accused elements in Jammu of harbouring an "obsessive opposition" to initiatives in the Kashmir Valley, claiming that this resistance has been used at times as "a proverbial stick to beat the Kashmiri with."

Lone said that while he hoped Jammu prospers, the region's insistence on influencing or opposing projects intended for Kashmir was "an issue of lunacy".

"I hope Jammu prospers. But this obsession of having everything and anything that Kashmir wants is more of an issue of lunacy. They have an IIM. What is wrong if a Law University comes to Kashmir," he asked.

Lone further argued that Kashmir's integration with the rest of India could not be "facilitated through intermediaries who continuously malign the region." He suggested that sentiment for a regional separation, and not merely an administrative adjustment, might be more widespread among Kashmiris than in the past.

"The desire for divorce is much, much higher in Kashmir than it ever was," he declared. "Need leadership to call a spade a spade."

Lone's demand comes just days after a BJP legislator's recent remarks about a separate Jammu state which drew widespread condemnation and forced the party to distance itself from it. Political parties in Jammu and Kashmir have historically sought to balance regional aspirations within a single administrative framework.

Most major political players, including those in Jammu, have so far vowed commitment to the Union Territory's unity, even as calls for statehood and autonomy continue in certain quarters.