Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday questioned the BJP government for not focusing on bringing back the portion of Jammu and Kashmir that was under the illegal occupation of China and concentrating only on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Replying to the motion of thanks on the Lieutenant Governor’s address in the Assembly, Omar raised the issue of the government’s selective focus on PoK while ignoring China’s illegal control over parts of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

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“One portion of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir is with Pakistan, but another portion is with China—why doesn’t anyone talk about that?” he asked.

Taking a jibe at External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar’s recent remarks on bringing PoK back under India’s control, Omar challenged the government’s resolve and highlighted China’s occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir.

Omar said, “The External Affairs Minister has said that they will bring back the portion of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan. Did we ever stop them? If they can bring it back, they should do it now.”

Omar said that the BJP accuses Congress of having given the Hajipeer area to Pakistan during an earlier war, but they should answer why the illegally occupied areas were not taken back during the Kargil War in 1999.

He said that the BJP accuses “us” of having insulted the last ruler of J&K Maharaja Hari Singh, but in reality what they have done themselves is fragmentation of Maharaja’s erstwhile territory of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories—J&K and Ladakh. The BJP also scrapped the state subject law that was introduced by the Maharaja to protect the lands and jobs for people of Jammu and Kashmir.

People of Kargil have opposed the formation of Ladakh as a separate UT, he said.

Lashing out at the BJP, Omar said it was not appropriate to insult the 22 martyrs of Kashmir who laid down their lives while fighting for democracy. The present Assembly is here only because of the sacrifices of those persons.

The Chief Minister said, “We are optimistic about restoration of the special status of J&K”.

He said incidents of terrorism were happening in J&K even after abrogation of Article 370. The areas of Jammu, Rajouri, Reasi, and other places that were declared free of terrorism during our regime were again witnessing terror strikes now when the police and law and order are not under the Chief Minister.

“If Article 370 was the cause of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, then terror incidents should have halted after its abrogation. But that has not happened,” Omar said.

He further said, “Our manifesto was talked about a lot here (in the Assembly). We had prepared it after a lot of deliberation. In our manifesto, we have asked people to give us five years. Today, I want to assure the people that we will fulfil all our promises in the next five years that we have promised in our manifesto.”