Monday 5 June 2017

காஸ்மீர்- NIA raids: Resistance leaders’ meet thwarted

NIA raids: Resistance leaders’ meet thwarted
 
*Road leading to Geelani’s house blocked
*Mirwaiz under house arrest;
*Malik detained
*Trio calls for protest after Friday prayers

ABID BASHIR

Srinagar, Publish Date: Jun 6 2017 12:23AM

File Photo-NIA
Police thwarted on Monday a meeting of the Joint Resistance Leadership, who were scheduled to announce their response to the raids conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) during the past two days.

The leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, were scheduled to meet representatives of the business community also and later address a press conference at the Hyderpora residence of Geelani.

However, a big police contingent deployed outside Geelani’s residence did not let anyone to move towards his house.

Geelani has been confined to his residence for most part of the past seven years.

Mirwaiz had already been placed under house arrest at his Srinagar residence, while Malik was detained by police at his Maisuma residence.

Media advisor to Hurriyat (M) Advocate Shahidul Islam, whose house was raided by an NIA team, too had been placed under house arrest on Sunday.

NIA has claimed that it recovered cash and other valuables during these raids on the residences of pro-freedom leaders, activists and a few businessmen in Delhi, Haryana, Jammu and Srinagar.

A Hurriyat Conference (G) spokesman said that several other leaders and activists of the amalgam, including Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, Peer Saif Ullah, Ayaz Akbar, Muhammad Altaf Shah, Raja Meraj u Din, Muhamad Ashraf Laya and Omer Adil Dar, were confined to their homes by government forces.

He said a posse of policemen entered the office of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Geelani’s organization, which operates from his Hyderpora residence.

“We strongly condemn these arbitrary measures. These curbs and restrictions are unjustified and illogical,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Calling the restrictions as “state-sponsored terrorism”, the statement said that by choking space and strangulating genuine voices, the authorities are following their “fascist dogma, thus creating anarchy in state”.

A JKLF spokesman said that Malik spoke to a few reporters before his detention and told them that “police started an oppressive campaign against the leadership from Sunday evening”.

 “These arrests, house arrests and other oppressive measures are a glaring example of J&K being run according to martial law,” he said.

“It has become a custom of rulers to suppress every voice before it is raised and this suppression is naked fascism and state-sponsored terrorism,” the spokesman said.

Reacting to the arrests and curbs on the meeting, a Hurriyat Conference (M) spokesman said, “Mirwaiz was scheduled to attend the joint resistance meeting at Geelani’s residence. But the anti-Kashmiri state resorted to its usual tactic of curbing the leadership through force, once again showing that Kashmir is ruled by the forces’ might.”

 ‘PROTEST ON FRIDAY’

The resistance leadership has asked people to demonstrate after Friday prayers against the raids conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) during the past two days.

The call for the protest came after the government forces thwarted a meeting between the resistance leadership and business leaders who were scheduled to discuss the raids on Monday.

The NIA has claimed it recovered cash and other valuables during these raids, which began after a TV sting operation claimed that a few resistance leaders admitted to receiving funds from Pakistan for the resistance.

“Syed Ali Geelani continues to be under house arrest and all roads leading to his house were firmly sealed. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was once again put under house arrest and Muhammad Yasin Malik was arrested and lodged in sub jail Kothi Bagh,” said a statement issued by the Joint Resistance Leadership.

“Not allowing the Joint Resistance Leadership to meet has become the norm for the state authorities who have to keep up the farce of normalcy through repression at the bidding of their masters in New Delhi, as they will be shown the door.”

“The leadership said post-Friday prayers, peaceful protest should be held across Kashmir against the witch-hunt, coercion and intimidation of resistance activists, leaders and members of the business community.”

The people will also protest, the statement said, against “India electronic media’s propaganda war against Kashmiris and its shameless attempt to discredit people’s freedom struggle”.

The joint leadership said the people and the leadership will continue to pursue their movement for the right to self-determination till it is achieved.

Referring to the raids being conducted by the NIA, the statement said, “Such moves to intimidate and harass pro-freedom leaders and activists is the government of India’s admission that it has not been able to politically defeat the people's struggle for freedom in J&K.”

“The government of India has completely failed in crushing the people's revolt, despite its largest military concentration in J&K which has unleashed a reign of terror and has been torturing the people for the past seven decades,” the statement said.

“Yet all repressive means and methods adopted to defeat or subdue the people and leadership’s unflinching resolve and commitment to their struggle for freedom have miserably failed. Kashmirs are defiant.  They have made up their mind that they will get their fundamental right even if they are killed, blinded, tortured, maimed, made to disappear, jailed, terrorized, harassed, beaten or humiliated ,” it added.

The Leadership said the people will not be “terrorized into submission”.

“The chief of the Indian army openly said that the army is here to instill fear in the people and his political colleagues in power endorsed that all is fair in war and it is the discretion of the army to take action as they deem fit in the war zone of Kashmir,” the statement said.

“After these brazen admissions of being at war with unarmed civilian population of Kashmir and ‘all being fair’ in such an unequal war, it comes as no surprise that this government can stoop to any level or employ any bullying means to intimidate pro-freedom activists and leaders and traders in order to shift focus from the people's revolt against forcible control,” the statement said.

The Leadership said the government of India was not interested in resolving the issue but had been “making efforts to malign and sideline the resistance leadership”.

“The high-decibel propaganda, rather vilification campaign against the people of Kashmir, leadership, business community, the youth and students now by Indian electronic media, whose interests are backed by the government of India and many of who are on the payroll of their agencies, is part of an aggressive strategy aimed at undermining and weakening the people's movement and distort the narrative of the Kashmir dispute,” the statement said.

The life for the pro-freedom leadership, activists and workers was never to be expected to be “a bed of roses” and they will be the targets of those suffering from the “arrogance of power”, the statement said.

“Incarceration, solitary confinements, detentions or worse is and will be their fate. They experience it daily. And like those they lead, their commitment to the cause of self-determination for people is firm and their promise to represent the just cause and work towards its resolution made to the people and the creator will last as long as they live. The leadership is ready to face every challenge thrown its way,” the statement said.
 

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