Srinagar, Apr 22 (KNS): Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Muhammad Umar Farooq and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Monday called for a valley-wide protest shutdown on Tuesday against the ill-treatment meted-out to the ailing and incarcerated JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik by NIA at Delhi and also against the ‘ongoing aggression’ of NIA and ED against Kashmiri resistance leaders, activists, senior businessmen, trade union leaders, kith and kins of resistance leaders and other people from different walks of life.
“NIA highhandedness has in fact forced senior resistance leader Muhammad Yasin Malik to go on a hunger strike and today his hunger strike has entered its 12th day. The life of already ailing Yasin Malik who is admitted at RML Hospital Delhi is in danger and rulers and their agencies are busy in playing with his life callously,” JRL said in a statement issued to KNS.
Terming the ‘ongoing aggression’ by NIA and ED against Kashmiris as ‘state sponsored violence’, JRL said that “from early 2017, India in its pursuit to take revenge from Kashmiris for not budging before tyranny started NIA terrorism. A concocted and frivolous case was formulated and many resistance leaders, businessmen and journalists were targeted, arrested, summoned to Delhi and investigated.”
“Many including Syed Shabir Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam ,Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saif-u-ullah, Raja Meraj-u-Din Kalwal, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar@ Bitta Karatay, businessmen Zahoor Ahmad Watali and Muhammad Aslam, Javid Ahmad and Shahid Yousuf Shah along with ailing Syeda Asiya Andrabi, Fehmida Sofi and Nahida Nasreen were arrested and put at Tihar Jail Delhi. JRL leader and Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir Muhammad Umar Farooq was summoned to Delhi recently. Not only this, two sons of ailing senior leader Syed Ali Shah namely Syed Naeem Geelani and Syed Naseem Geelani are being continuously summoned and interrogated by NIA from 2017,” JRL said.
“Besides this, a maligning campaign was launched through media against Kashmiri resistance which is in fact going on unabated. It is against these arbitrary illegal and tyrannical measures unleashed by Indian rulers using NIA and ED tools that JRL leader Yasin Malik protested against and has started a hunger strike as a mark of protest against highhandedness,” JRL added.
Appealing people to observe a complete shutdown on Tuesday against India’s ‘aggression’ against Kashmiris, JRL said that “resistance leader Muhammad Yasin Malik has in fact put his life in danger while protesting against the highhandedness of NIA and also against its humiliating attitude towards Kashmiris and it is our collective responsibility to express solidarity with him and with all those who have and are facing NIA, ED wrath unleashed by Indian state apparatus by closing down our business, transport ,offices and other activities and to send a clear message to the world that Kashmiris we as a nation are not going to budge before the military might of India.”
JRL also said that “a blanket ban on civilian traffic and movement for two days on highway is a most undemocratic and inhuman act by Indian state which accounts to snatching freedom of free movement and is a gross human rights violation. Similarly the order by home ministry to stop trade across the ceasefire line (LOC) has also put the lives and economy of thousands into jeopardy and these revengeful and dictatorial orders deserve condemnation from one and all.”
They said that the shutdown will also be observed to protest the highway ban for two days of the week and the suspension of cross ceasefire line (LOC) trade as both measures are anti-people causing great distress to people and affecting their livelihood. (KNS)