He said the people of Jammu and Kashmir were being punished for a crime in which they had no part. “In Op Sindoor, our military punished the neighbouring country. But we are also being punished for the Pahalgam attack. J&K people, who raised their voice against the attack and staged protests against it, are being punished for the attack,” he said.”Can anybody deny that people of J&K on their own came out to protest and condemned the Pahalgam attack? From Kathua to Kupwara, J&K people came out to condemn the attack. But despite that, unfortunately, the Pahalgam attack is being used to deny us statehood,” he added.Abdullah said he and his colleagues would not sit idle during the eight weeks given by the Supreme Court to the Centre to respond to the plea on statehood.“From today, we will use these eight weeks to go door to door in all 90 assembly segments for a signature campaign on the restoration of statehood. If people are not ready to sign the document, I will accept defeat,” he said, adding, “My heart says that in eight weeks, we will collect lakhs of signatures and we will hand the signature campaign document to the Centre and the Supreme Court judges.”He said this was not about personal or political gain. “This is not about my family, my government, my cabinet but it is about J&K people. Is it a crime to get your rights?” he asked.“Till now, we were making use of letters, resolutions and meetings to put our point across. Now we will have to take these voices from our offices to the doors where these decisions are taken,” Abdullah said, asserting that he was confident of achieving the goal of getting signatures in support of the demand for statehood.
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