National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Thursday that his party will review the political agenda for Jammu and Kashmir only after all leaders are released from detention, PTI reported. Leaders of several parties were detained on August 5, 2019, the day India scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of its Constitution.

Abdullah held a meeting of National Conference leaders. “The aim of today’s meeting was to ensure that the four leaders were free,” Abdullah said. “We will discuss and review the political agenda once all political leaders are set free.” The former chief minister met National Conference General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and former ministers Mohammad Shafi Uri, Abdul Rahim Rather and Nasir Aslam Wani. He said he will organise an all-party meeting later, The Indian Express reported.

“I hope that those who came for the meeting today are free now, not just for today, after one year and 15 days of detention,” Abdullah said. “I will be meeting other leaders as well.”

Abdullah said he also wanted People’s Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti to be released from detention. The National Conference chief said the discussion at the all-party meeting would revolve around the Gupkar Declaration, in which all leaders pledged to protect the autonomy and unity of the Union Territory, and called the abrogation of special status unconstitutional and an aggression against the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

Abdullah had called a meeting of several political parties at his residence on August 5, but the Jammu and Kashmir administration did not allow it to go ahead.

“People are in the most miserable condition [in Jammu and Kashmir],” Abdullah said. “There’s hardly anything to say, there’s hardly any drinking water for people. Businesses are also zero, tourism is zero. There is suffering everywhere. There’s the coronavirus taking a heavy toll on people, and we still have a situation where the security is very tight.”

Farooq Abdullah and his son and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had been in detention till March under the Public Safety Act. On August 18, the National Conference decided to convene a meeting of its senior leaders, after the local administration informed the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that none of the 16 leaders that the party claimed were in illegal confinement, were detained.