Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, 6 February, attacked the Opposition and the Congress in the Lok Sabha and spoke on a range of issues including the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the economy and Jammu and Kashmir.
CLAIM
An hour and 5 minutes into the speech, PM Modi quoting former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, said, “that the abrogation of Article 370 would bring a massive earthquake and will divide Kashmir from India. Farooq Abdullah had said that the removal of Article 370 will strengthen the road to freedom for Kashmiris.”
While Omar Abdullah has said that the decision to abrogate the special status conferred to Jammu and Kashmir would separate the then state from India, he never mentioned an earthquake-inducing rift.
PM Modi’s quote in the Parliament was also tweeted by the official Twitter handle of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
We searched on Google using keywords ‘Omar Abdullah Article 370 earthquake’ and found an article published by a website called ‘Faking News’ on 28 May 2014.
Scrolling down the website, one can see a disclaimer that reads: “Content of this website is a work of fiction. Readers are advised not to confuse the ‘news reports’ of Faking News as being genuine and true.”
Thus, the article published on Faking News is a work of satire.
Further, we found that while the former J&K chief minister had made a comment on Article 370 in 2014, which does not allude to an earthquake. He tweeted, “Mark my words and save this tweet – long after Modi Government is a distant memory either J&K won't be part of India or Article 370 will still exist.”
OMAR’S PARTY LEADERS DENY PM’S CLAIM
Speaking to NDTV, the spokesperson of National Conference (NC) Imran Dar denied the claim made by PM Modi about its leader Omar Abdullah and said, "Omar Abdullah made no such statement. Every statement of Omar Abdullah is in the public domain and he has not made any such statement.”
Omar Abdullah, who has been under detention since the abrogation of Article 370, shared his last tweet on 5 August 2019.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, besides two political stalwarts from NC and its arch-rival PDP, were booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) by the administration on Thursday, 6 February, officials said in Srinagar. Their six-month preventive custody was due to end on Thursday.
Evidently, PM Narendra Modi wrongly attributed a quote from the satirical website Faking News to former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
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