Srinagar: The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik has called for three-day shutdown beginning today against the killing of three militants and seven civilians in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday. The leaders also called for the march towards army headquarters in Badami Bagh on Monday.
JRL in a statement issued to GNS said that south Kashmir has been turned into a graveyard for its people especially the youth, as eleven of its residents were killed today by the Indian armed forces “who went on a rampage” in Pulwama.
The leaders strongly condemned and protested the killing of seven civilians Shabaz Ali, Suhail Ahmed, Liaqat Ahmed, Murtaza Ahmed, Amir Ahmed, Adid Hussain and Tauseef Ahmed saying they were “murdered in cold blood” as “forces fired live bullets at people with the intention to kill while three armed youth were martyred”.
“The state terror and human rights abuse is worsening by the day especially under the garb of cordon and search operations,” JRL said, adding, “The Indian army chief had already indicated to the increase in civilian killings with impunity in his recently shocking statements.”
JRL said that shouldering the coffins of our youth each day is now unbearable as is the silence of the international community at the massacre in Kashmir.
“As Govt of India is only interested in our territory and forcibly holds on to it while systematically eliminating the people, it is better that they finish us off at once and that is why leadership has asked GoI to do that as we march towards their army headquarters in Badami Bagh on Monday. Or else stop the killings and massacres and resolve the dispute and save human lives,” the leaders said.
“There is not even a whimper of protest or concern at these brutal killings shown by any in India who claim it to be a land of Ahimsa and Gandhian ideals which is disappointing. When it comes to Kashmir all these claims get exposed, all become deaf dumb and blind to it, fearing to take a stand on it as the shrill cacophony of jingoism and hyper-nationalism takes sway,” the leaders said, adding, “The propaganda machine of Govt of India, its biased electronic media, aids and abets this barbarity unleashed upon Kashmiris by justifying the killing of civilians branding them as overground workers of armed youth.”
JRL further said that “the subjugated but resilient people of Kashmir are only asking for the fulfillment of their basic right which is denied to them by force leading to their killing and repression”. “But seventy years of people’s struggle will not be over by any military measure,” the leader said.
“To mourn the Pulwama killings and register their strong protest and condemnation against this cruelty and barbarity people will observe a three-day shutdown from today,” JRL said. (GNS)
