'I'll help you buy land, find Kashmiri girls to marry'

The Centre may have scrapped Article 370 ending special status for Jammu & Kashmir with the stated objective to ensure the development of the state and its integration with the country. However, for a BJP lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh, it was an opportunity to get the "bachelor" saffron party workers married with "gori" (fair) Kashmiri girls.

BJP legislator Vikram Singh Saini offered to help the party workers in acquiring plots of land in the valley and live thereafter building a house on it.

"Jo kunware hain, unki shadi kara denge Kashmiri ladki se... hamare Muslim karyakartaon ko khush hona chahiye... woh gori Kashmiri ladkiyon se shadi kar sakte hain" (those, who are bachelors, can get married with Kashmiri girls... our Muslim workers should be happy as they can now marry fair-complexioned Kashmiri girls), Saini said while speaking at a function at Khatauli in UP's Muzaffarnagar district, about 500 kilometres from here, on Tuesday.

He said that earlier a Kashmiri girl lost her citizenship of the state if she married a boy from UP. "It is torture... It will not happen now," he remarked.

"You (workers) can also purchase plots and build houses there... I will help you in this," he added.

Incidentally, the function was organised by the BJP workers to celebrate the decision of the Centre to scrap Art 370.

The lawmaker threatened the police with serious consequences if they tried to prevent the saffron party from organising such programmes. "The police belongs to Yogiji (CM Yogi Adityanath)... no one has the courage to stop us," he said.