Jammu’s aggressive demands for a National Law University have exposed its own fault lines, with residents of its Muslim-majority Pir Panjal and Chenab Valley areas seeking the university in their own backyard.

While Hindus are 66 per cent of the population in the Jammu division, the two Muslim-majority sub-regions account for six of its 10 districts and make up about two-thirds of the division by area.

Protesters in Jammu’s Hindu-majority “Dogra heartland” — consisting of the districts of Jammu, Udhampur, Samba and Kathua — had initially wanted to wrest the proposed NLU from the Valley.

They later modified their stand, seeking an NLU in both Kashmir and Jammu, after chief minister Omar Abdullah asked why there was no parity between the two regions when Jammu got both an IIT and an IIM in 2016.

However, influential voices in Pir Panjal and the Chenab Valley are now calling for the varsity to be set up in their own areas.

“Chenab Valley deserves a National Law University for justice, equal opportunity and equal development,” former state minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori wrote on X.

Pir Panjal political activist Guftar Choudhary said that all the big institutions in the Jammu region — the AIIMS, IIT, IIM and the central university — were in the Jammu, Samba or Kathua districts.

He said the movement for an NLU was gaining momentum in Pir Panjal.

“A Joint Action Committee should be formed immediately. Leaders across political parties should join hands for this important cause. Peer Panjal deserves an NLU. Peer Panjal is the heart of J&K,” Choudhary wrote on X.

“If securing a National Law University demands that we step onto the streets, raise our voices, and stand shoulder to shoulder for our future, then we will not hesitate for a moment….”

Choudhary told reporters that “when the issue of development comes, they want everything there (in the Dogra heartland)”.

Jammu’s BJP politicians and Rightwing ecosystem have in recent weeks launched multiple communally tinged protests, from opposing the admission of Muslims to a medical college to objecting to Muslims dominating the Jammu and Kashmir senior football team and under 14 cricket squad.

Jammu witnessed a Tricolour-waving demonstration for the NLU on Friday, too.

Peoples Conference president and legislator Sajad Lone on Wednesday sought an “amicable divorce” between the Kashmir and Jammu regions following the NLU controversy. Several leading voices in Jammu, too, have called for separate statehood.

“Maybe time has come for an amicable divorce. It is not only about developmental matters. Jammu has become the proverbial stick to beat the Kashmiri with,” Lone said.

Many in Kashmir claim that the Jammu region has been pocketing most of the government jobs and professional-college seats following a controversial reservation policy implemented by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s administration.

Student activist Sahil Parray wrote on X on Friday that the latest advertisement for police posts had set aside 681 posts for Jammu district against only 29 for Srinagar.

“Let that sink in. A region that has lived through 35 years of turmoil, carries the highest population, highest unemployment and one of the largest BPL populations reduced to just 29 selections from the summer capital,” he said.

He described this as a “systematic sidelining of Kashmir”.

Overall, 2,381 of the police posts advertised are for the Jammu division and 1,097 for Kashmir, sources said. Each division has 10 districts, but the Valley has the larger population.