Srinagar: Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) Wednesday called for a complete shutdown in north Kashmir’s Sopore town on Jan 6 to mark the anniversary on Sopore massacre, in which about 55 people were killed 25 years back. The Sopore market and adjoining areas were also set on fire.

“To mark that day, people of Sopore are appealed to observe complete shutdown on January 6.” JRL comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Mohammad Umer Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said in a joint statement issued here.

JRL appealed the international community to investigate the massacre and other similar incidents in Kashmir and use influence and identify the personnel belonging to Indian forces involved in the war crimes.

Remembering the ill-fated day, JRL said that “the great nations never forget their martyrs and they continue their struggle for which these martyrs have sacrificed their precious lives.”

They appealed all the conscious people to assemble at the Jamia Masjid Sopore after the afternoon prayers where a programme would be held by the joint leadership.

JRL expressed their sympathy with hundreds of families who lost their loved ones or whose houses and shops were burnt to ashes on that fateful day.

JRL said that humanity may have never witnessed such a heinous crime when a toddler snatched from the lap of his mother was thrown into the flames and when the hapless mother protested, she too was silenced forever by the bullets.

“Whole town was in rubble, houses and shops were turned into ashes and horror stories and ghastly tales were all around which made a person shiver down his spine. The madness of these killers didn’t stop there, they fired upon and burned a bus en-route to Bandipora, killing and burning alive all its passengers,” they said.

JRL said that this dance of death, with 55 innocent killings, 120 houses and 350 shops gutted, was a unique New Year gift from the masters of traitors.

They said Sopore has a distinction of being politically mature and emotionally affiliated with the freedom movement, for which it has been a thorn in the eyes of the stooges, and this doomsday of 6th January was just an act of revenge to subjugate and suppress the population.

“Conscious and mature nations can never afford to forget their heroes, they said and added that trigger happy forces hardly differentiate on the party affiliations and they don’t spare anybody, as the Kashmiri Muslims’ identity is more than enough to legalize such lethal punishment,” they said.

JRL unanimously decided to call a general strike on January 6 in Sopore town on Saturday and decided to organize congregational prayers for martyrs in Jamia Masjid Sopore after Zuhar prayers where people will commemorate and pray for the innocents killed on Jan 6, 1993,” JRL said.

Guest