: In occupied Kashmir, the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, Syed Ali Gilani has said that the people of Kashmir will remain steadfast till the goal of their inalienable right to self-determination is achieved.
Syed Ali Gilani delivered a brief speech at Jamia Majid Hyderpora after he was allowed to offer Juma prayers for the first time during the last eight years. The occupation authorities kept him under house arrest since 2010. The APHC Chairman maintained that a new strategy to achieve freedom from Indian subjugation would be soon formulated after due consultations. Earlier, as soon as the news of Syed Ali Gilani’s release spread in the area, a large number of people, including women and children, thronged the masjid to listen his speech. Clashes between the people and the police ensued soon after prayers ended at the Jamia Masjid where the APHC Chairman offered prayers and addressed the gathering.
The Chairman of Hurriyat forum, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, addressing a public gathering at Jamia Masjid in Srinagar asked the Indian authorities to take back its police cover provided to the resistance leaders and stop playing politics over it. He said that after failing to break the will of resistance leadership through arrests by the National Investigation Agency, New Delhi had now come up with police security cover propaganda against the pro-freedom leaders.
Senior APHC leader and the Chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, in an interview in Srinagar said that the Kashmir dispute should be resolved by granting the Kashmiris their right to self-determination in line with the relevant UN resolutions. He termed the appointment of Dineshwar Sharma as an interlocutor by India as a non-serious initiative.
The resistance leaders including Muhammad Yasin Malik, Muhammad Yousuf Naqash, Hakeem Abdur Rasheed, Bilal Siddiqi, Javaid Ahmed Mir, Wajahat Bashir Qureshi, Khawaja Firdous Wani and Ghazi Javaid Baba attended a prayers meeting held at the Martyrs’ Graveyard at Eidgah in Srinagar and paid glowing tributes to Ashfaq Majeed Wani, Shabbir Siddiqui, Jaleel Andrabi and Dr Abdul Ahad Guru and other Kashmiri martyrs. Muhammad Yasin Malik addressing a gathering at Anchar in Soura area of Srinagar said that the unity and oneness of people of Jammu and Kashmir would lead them to success in the freedom struggle.
Meanwhile, Indian forces’ personnel continued siege and search operations in Sunderbani and Nowshera areas of Rajouri district on the second consecutive day, today. Hurriyat leader, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, addressing a public gathering in Madhama Sangam in Islamabad said that occupied Kashmir had been turned into a concentration camp where people were being subjected to the worst kind of atrocities.
In UK, a large number of people held a rally in Sheffield to remind the heads of states of the Commonwealth countries their obligations towards settlement of the lingering Kashmir dispute. The rally, held ahead of the Commonwealth Summit, to be held in London on April 16, was addressed among others by Professor Nazir Ahmed Shawl, Beriter Abdul Majeed Tramboo, and Councillors, Muhammad Maroof, Zahira Naaz and Jackie Drayton. The Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Self-Determination Movement International, Raja Najabat Hussain, handed over to members of All Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir in the UK Parliament a petition seeking debate on Kashmir in the House. The petition contains signatures of 54 MPs.
