To retrieve Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir is very much on agenda: Minister
To retrieve Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and make it a part of India is very much on the government’s agenda, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Monday.
In a meeting with London-based Jammu and Kashmir-origin students and social groups, he said after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over, he sought to “correct several anomalies of the past that were the legacy of successive governments since 1947”.
Singh, who is on an official visit to the UK, said the abrogation of Article 370 has created a sense of belonging among the people of Jammu and Kashmir and given them equal rights vis-a-vis their counterparts in the rest of the country.
In 2019, the central government had abrogated the article, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated it into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Prime Minister Modi will be remembered for having brought “justice to refugees from Pakistan settled in Jammu and Kashmir and to the daughters of Jammu and Kashmir who were deprived of their constitutional rights of citizenship and owning property”, the minister of state for personnel said referring to the government’s 2019 decision.