Srinagar: Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) leaders and activists Thursday protested against torturing of jail inmates and ‘unabated killings’.

The JRL leaders and activists along with people from all walks of life gathered outside JKLF office at Abi-Guzar and marched towards the city center.

Displaying placards depicting slogans against atrocities being committed on incarcerated Kashmiris and ‘ongoing genocide’ of Kashmiri youth, the protesters raised slogans in favor of freedom and resistance.

After reaching near Press enclave, protesters held a sit-in which was addressed by JRL leaders including Ghulam Nabi Zaki, Hakeem Abdul Rashid and Noor Muhammad Kalwal.

The speakers while reproving the prolonging of incarceration periods of those languishing in jails also condemned the unabated killing of Kashmiri youth.  

Meanwhile, JRL leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Muhammad Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik in a statement issued here said that thousands of young and old Kashmiris have been put into jails and incarceration centers and authorities are doing everything to prolong their confinement.

Leaders said that hundreds of Kashmiris are languishing in jails from decades under concocted charges.

“Many have been imprisoned for life and many are facing trails from a long time and are even being denied a bail,” they said.

JRL leaders said that from last year NIA and Enforcement Directorate has been used as a tool to penalize more Kashmiris.

“These agencies acting on the orders of their political masters not only arrested many leaders and relatives of people in resistance including Shabir Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saif-u-llah, Raja Meraj-u-Din Kalwal , Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Zahoor Ahmad Watali, Kamran Yousuf, Javid Ahmad and Shahid Yousuf Shah, but also grilled hundreds of Kashmiris in the name of ‘terror’ funding,” the leaders said.

“These people are languishing in various Indian jails and also in jails of Jammu Kashmir and are constantly being terrorized and intimidated.  This is nothing but worst kind of political vendetta on display against Kashmiris which is highly condemnable,” asserted JRL.

Terming the ongoing spree of killings and unleashing of oppression as ‘worst terrorism’, JRL said that Indian occupation has given its forces a free hand to kill Kashmiris at will. “These killers enjoy immunity from persecution and are killing our youth with impunity and brazenness,” JRL said.

Referring to the killing of a young man Khalid Ahmad Dar at Khudwani Kulgam by ‘trigger happy killers’ in uniform, JRL leaders said that “during last month or so, Indian trigger happy forces killed many innocents including two women and many young boys. Soon killers in uniform slaughter Kashmiri innocents, their political persons in the form of rulers and assembly members come up with condemnations and call for probes to divert attention from these gruesome acts.”

“Though these killings are done by Indian forces but the responsibility lies on the shoulders of those pro-India politicians, assembly members and rulers who provide legal cover and immunity to the killers and thus contribute in this genocide,” JRL leaders added.

Reiterating the call for a complete shutdown on Saturday, 13th January 2018, against brutal killings at Khudwani, ‘killing of youth and other oppressive acts’, JRL leaders appealed people to shutdown their offices, business establishments, transport and other activities for one day and raise their voices against growing ‘state terrorism’.

Guest