Srinagar,  Syed Altaf Bukhari, president of J&K Apni Party, said on Saturday that statehood to Jammu and Kashmir should be restored as promised by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the floor of the Parliament.

Addressing a public rally at the S.K. Stadium in Sonwar area of Srinagar city, Bukhari said: "We demand the Prime Minister to restore statehood to us as promised by the Home Minister on the floor of the Parliament."

He said politicians have been responsible for getting people killed by selling them dreams.

"We formed this party to tell people the truth. We only promise what we can achieve and for that, we are ready to fight. Graveyards have been filled with 2 lakh of our youth who were promised what was not achievable.

"We will engage the best lawyers of the country and pay them crores of rupees to fight legally for the restoration of Article 370 and 35A in the Supreme Court because we have a strong case," he said.

"Those politicians are telling you to vote for them so that they can restore Article 370. Does anyone ask them as to how they can restore Article 370 by winning an election? Today, I appeal to all politicians to join hands so that we do healthy, violence free-politics in which our Kashmiri Pandit brothers will be equal stakeholders and in which Kashmir is not pitched against Jammu and vice versa," Bukhari added.

He said whenever there are sports events, local youth are arrested.

"This is no democracy. We have decided to form a team of leaders who will visit various jails in and outside Jammu and Kashmir to collect details of youth under detention there.

"The future of our youth has been destroyed. Favourable police verification for routine jobs like passport, employment etc., are denied to youth some of whom were not even born when violence started here. They are denied jobs, passports etc., on the flimsy grounds that some relative of theirs was involved in militancy. This we will get reversed," he said.

"We have no reservations about going with those details to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister of the country and appeal for the release of our youth.

"For this, our political opponents can call us agents of Delhi. Let them do what pleases them and we will do what is in the best interests of the people," Bukhari said.