Pained to see lives lost but shouldn’t forget Ladakh’s anti-Kashmir stand : Sajad Lone

Srinagar, Sep 25: People’s Conference president and MLA Handwara Sajad Lone on Thursday said he was pained to see lives lost in Ladakh, adding that “Ladakh always took an undue advantage while being part of erstwhile J&K state.”

Taking to X, Lone wrote, “I am pained at the death of four people in Ladakh. May they rest in peace. Having said that. Time to call a spade a spade. I have to say that the Kashmiri people were reviled and slandered by the people of Ladakh for 70 years. I was the happiest when they were separated from us and a UT was carved for them. I was more happy for us than them. A very very senior leader who I respect a lot and was jailed with me in SKICC in 2019 will bear testimony; I told him in jail in 2019.”

Lone said “I am happy. I told him. They would take away our jobs in the name of reservation.

They would humiliate us. They would not allow our transporters or businessmen to work in Ladakh.. They had Hill Council. We as J& K had literally no control over them. We would cede jobs to them in the name of reservation. Disproportionate funding. Tiny Assembly seats. And an even tiny Parliament seat. 4 Assembly seats and a Parliament seat for a tiny population. ST caste status for the whole region. Yet they were the perpetual cry babies. Blaming Kashmiris for anything and everything. And on top of that they would always be the proverbial stick which Delhi used to beat us with,” Lone wrote.

He said “in the last 7 decades, they in collusion with Delhi manufactured a paranoia against the Kashmiris by “having painted us as evil.” “They being a part of us was extortionate and pricey. Why did we ever have them with us? What did we get apart from slander, loss of jobs, a massive hole in the budget to fund heavily subsidised Ladakh region,” Lone lamented.