Srinagar: The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik has said that the protest shutdown over the mayhem in Shopian will continue tomorrow, April 3, and on Wednesday, April 4, the entire resistance and Hurriyat leadership will move towards Shopian to express solidarity with the people and offer condolences to the bereaved families who lost their loved ones.
The leadership in a statement issued to PTK, said it will also address a public rally in Shopian. It has asked people to peacefully protest Shopian killings at their local mosques after Zuhr prayers.
JRL also said that the claims made by the agencies of the ruling regime that leadership is now free to move stands completely exposed as “within two days of it we were again put under arbitrary house arrest and Yasin Sahab detained in jail”.
The leadership said that the mayhem in Shopian in which 17 people were killed in one day is another gory episode of pain agony and torment that people of Kashmir are repeatedly subject to from time to time over the past thirty years by the military might of GoI that has left “more than one lakh Kashmiris dead and hundreds of thousands maimed injured and blinded”.
“Kashmir has been turned a land of massacres and south of Kashmir especially Shopian Tral, Pulwama, Kulgam, Anantnag into killing fields drenched in the blood of its natives mostly young boys. This is the same place where from the ruling PDP claims people voted for it and this is their response to that,” the leaders said.
“The vengeful way that bullets and pellets were showered on protesting people left four people dead on spot while more than 50 sustained critical bullet injuries and are battling for life in hospitals. More than 200 people have been hit by pellets many among them in their eyes which can lead to blindness as has been witnessed,” they added.
“The scenes at the hospital are heart-wrenching as the injured writhing in pain has horrific episodes of forces brutality to narrate. Houses have been blown up and razed to ground and even the owners have not been spared the bullet and killed. What is equally cruel and inhuman is that local resident Mushtaq Ahmed Thakur was used as a human shield by the Indian forces and was killed,” JRL said.
JRL said that there is deep pain and anger among people as they witness killings of young boys who feel forced to take up arms as a means of resisting oppression and forcible control over their land.
“These young boys give up their studies and stake their future because of the lingering Kashmir dispute and the status quo over it due to GoI arrogance and stubbornness not to resolve it, and the resulting oppression pushes these young boys to take up arms to liberate their land,” they said.
JRL said that GoI’s military approach to deal with Kashmir dispute is consuming our next generation which is a matter of grave concern for all of us. They said that GoI should by now have fully realised that force and might will not deter people from pursuing their just cause even at the cost of their lives.
“GoI will have to engage with the dispute and give people their basic right to self determination. The sooner it is done the better it is for the whole region,” JRL said.
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