In occupied Kashmir, the Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Muhammad Yasin Malik, has said that people of Kashmir will not let anyone to turn their territory into another Palestine where original inhabitants were thrown out by Israel and enslaved.
Muhammad Yasin Malik said this while addressing a protest rally at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, today, against India’s attempts to repeal Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution, which grants special rights and privileges to the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir. “State subject law is guaranteeing our unique identity and right to self-determination and defending it is the duty of every Kashmiri,” he said.
The petitions seeking repeal of the Article 35-A have been listed for hearing in the Indian Supreme Court on August 27. A three-member bench of the apex court will hear the petitions.
Yasin Malik said that any tinkering with state subject law would face a stiff resistance from the people of occupied Kashmir. Any change in demography of Kashmir is detrimental to all Kashmiris and they will safeguard the uniqueness of the territory. He said the Kashmiris are one on the matter because its abrogation will affect their lives. He said that the Kashmiri people were striving for their right to self-determination and state subject law is directly linked with this right. He said RSS-backed BJP and its allies want to fiddle with the state subject law enacted in 1927 and settle the Indian citizens in the occupied territory and change its demography.
Asking people of Kashmir to be ready for a full-fledged agitation if any adverse decision is delivered by Indian Supreme Court, the JKLF Chairman said that the whole Kashmir will come on roads.
Expressing concern over the plight of Kashmiri political detainees languishing in different jails, Yasin Malik said that from southern districts of Kashmir to northern districts and central Kashmir, a spree of arrests was going on unabated and thousands of young and old were being put behind the bars and tortured physically and mentally. He said that some months back, the DGP of Kashmir had issued a statement and appealed not to involve families into hostilities but today villages, towns and localities of Kashmir especially in southern districts of Kashmir were witnessing a spree of arrests. He said that Kashmiris arrested by the Indian NIA and ED and lodged at Delhi’s Tihar jail are also facing same torture. Aasiya Andrabi, Fahmida Sofi and Naheeda Nasreen, who were recently shifted to Tihar Jail, have been put into different cells and are being tortured inhumanly, he deplored.
Similarly, he said, in other barracks where Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Raja Merajudin Kalwal, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Zahoor Ahmad Watali, Shahid Yousuf Shah, Muhammad Aslam Wani, Muzaffar Ahmad Dar and others are facing hardships.
He said jails like Kothuwa, Udhampor, Kot-balwal, Hiranagar, Srinagar and Amphala have been turned into the worst concentration camps where political detainees are tortured.
The JKLF Chairman strongly condemned the prolonged illegal detention of party leaders, Sirajuddin Mir and Abdul Rashid Magloo who are languishing at Kotbalwal jail under draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) and Zahoor Ahmad Butt who has been arrested some two weeks back
He appealed to the people to make every programme announced by the JRL successful over the issue of article 35-A.
The JKLF leaders and activists along with people from all walks of life, today, staged protests at Lal Chowk in Srinagar. Led by JKLF Chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, elders, youth, businessmen students and people from all walks of life gathered at Lal Chowk and staged a peaceful protest against a conspiracy to change the demography of Kashmir, fiddling with the state subject law and tarnish the unique identity of Kashmir and plight of Kashmiris languishing in jails.
Holding placards against proposed abrogation of the state subject law and in favor of freedom, protesters raised slogans on the occasion.
