Irony that BJP got votes from Tral where Burhan Wani, Zakir Musa were martyred: NC leader

National Conference general secretary and former MLA, Ali Muhammad Sagar on Monday quoted a controversy calling Burhan Wani and Zakir Musa 'martyrs'. Talking to party workers in Pulwama, news agency ANI quoted Sagar as saying, "It is an irony that BJP gets votes from Tral where Burhan Wani and Zakir were martyred, though they were migrant votes."

Zakir Musa, chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, was killed in an encounter with security forces in a village in South Kashmir's Tral on May 24. He had taken to militancy in 2013. In 2012 he left for Chandigarh to study engineering at Ram Dev Jindal college but left it midway to join militancy.

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Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election is expected to be held by the end of this year. The election body is likely to announce the date for the polls after the conclusion of Amarnath Yatra. Earlier, in a statement the Election Commission had said, "Election Commission, under Article 324 of the Constitution and other extant laws/rules etc have unanimously decided that holding of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir shall be considered later in this year." 

The Amarnath Yatra will begin on July 1, the day of Masik Shivratri, and would conclude on August 15. As mandated by the Constitution, the state was brought under President's Rule on December 19, 2018. The term was extended for another 6 months on June 19.

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"The Commission will keep on regularly and on real-time basis monitor the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, taking inputs from all necessary quarters and after the conclusion of Amarnath Yatra will announce the election schedule for the conduct of Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir," the statement had said.