Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said that Kashmiris are apprehensive about travelling outside the Union Territory as they are “being portrayed as suspects” after the Delhi blast, The Indian Express reported.

He added that “even he feared driving around in New Delhi in a vehicle with a J&K number on it”.

The blast near the Red Fort metro station on November 10 killed 13 persons. Two days after the explosion, the Union government described it as a “terrorist incident”. The doctor believed to have been driving the car that exploded was identified as Umar Nabi, a resident of Kashmir.

Speaking at an event in Kulgam on Wednesday, Abdullah said that a “few persons” were responsible for the attack, “but a perception is being created where all Kashmiris are being looked at with suspicion”.

“In the prevailing circumstances after the blast, parents will not want to send their children outside,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying. “When we are looked at with suspicion, when we are defamed for someone else’s wrongdoing…it will be very difficult for us to leave Kashmir.”

He said that even driving a Jammu and Kashmir-registered vehicle in Delhi “is being seen as a crime”.

Abdullah added: “I wonder if I should take out my own car if there aren’t too many security personnel around me, because what if I’m intercepted and asked for credentials.”

He also questioned the Union government’s claim that peace had returned to Jammu and Kashmir after Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated in 2019, The Hindu reported.

“We were told that after 2019, the bloodshed of the past 30 to 35 years would not repeat,” The Indian Express quoted Abdullah as saying. “But it has not stopped.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre had abrogated Article 370, which gave special status to the erstwhile state, in August 2019. It also bifurcated the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

In December 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 2019 order abrogating Article 370 and ordered the Union government to restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

Demands for restoring the region’s special status have grown over the years.

On Monday, the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association alleged that Kashmiri students in several northern states were facing profiling, eviction and intimidation in the aftermath of the Delhi blast.

The association’s National Convenor Nasir Khuehami urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene to “call off the vilification” of the community.

On November 14, Abdullah called for the strictest punishment against those involved in the Delhi blast, but added that the actions of a “handful of people” must not define the majority of peace-loving residents of the Union Territory.

“Every resident of Jammu and Kashmir is not a terrorist,” he had told reporters. “Not every Kashmiri is on the side of terrorists. It is only a handful of people who have tried to disturb the peace and harmony here.”

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