SRINAGAR: People’s Conference chief Sajad Gani Lone on Wednesday said a case against National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and others for their role in the alleged rigging of the 1987 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls will be the biggest confidence-building measure towards Kashmiris. “As far as 1987 is concerned, I strongly believe that even today, the biggest CBM (confidence-building measure) towards Kashmiris will be an FIR in which Farooq sahib, Congress leaders and bureaucrats are named for rigging the election,” Lone told reporters in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district. The separatist-turned-mainstream politician is contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the Baramulla constituency. Lone said there has been no accountability for the election rigging in 1987, which he claimed was the trigger for the outbreak of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. “One lakh people have died, thousands have been jailed. An army of orphans, an army of widows and there is no accountability? Were they not humans? Don’t their lives matter?” he asked. Lone said his father, Abdul Gani Lone, was a political person who gave up on electoral politics after the 1987 polls. “My father participated in elections till 1987 but not after that. That is why we do not use his photos in our campaign. We respect his stand,” he said.
