Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said the state she had ruled, now stripped of its special status and divided into two Union territories, was a “laboratory” for the ruling BJP at the Centre. Talking to reporters at a press conference in Patna, a day after the opposition meeting, Mufti voiced fear of “Kashmirisation” of the entire country if the party returned to power.

“There is, indeed, an attack on the idea of India. It was most evident when they abrogated Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and put its leaders, including three former chief ministers, in jail”, said Mufti, who was the last CM of the state. “J&K was a laboratory. What we see in Delhi today, by way of the central ordinance, started much earlier in our state. Unfortunately, few people understood it back then,” alleged Mufti, who heads the People’s Democratic Party.