Srinagar: Joint Resistance Leadership on Monday termed Chief Minister Mehbooba’s statement, calling people of Kashmir “agitators first and beggars later” as insult to them and their supreme sacrifices.
In a joint statement, the leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani ,Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that “the love for chair has completely blinded her.”
“They expressed deep resentment and condemnation at the statement of Mehbooba Mufti for mocking at and insulting People of Kashmir and their supreme sacrifices by calling them agitators first and beggars later,” reads the statement issued here.
The leaders said that that the love for chair has completely blinded her and “her ilk of opportunists to see what havoc they have wrecked upon the people of Kashmir since their alliance with the BJP.” “Each day a new hell is let loose on the people through the various agencies of occupation that she presides over, to break the will and determination of the people for demanding the just resolution of internationally recognised Kashmir dispute as per peoples will and aspirations,” the y said, adding, “It is the integrity and tremendous resilience of the Kashmiri people that despite being no match for India in terms of population and resources, it is giving such a stiff resistance to occupation ,to achieve its fundamental political rights as a nation.”
They said that such exemplary courage can only be exhibited by a morally and ethically conscientious people striving to uphold and achieve the fundamental human principle of freedom and right to choose and making tremendous sacrifices for it. “But exploiters and opportunists cannot understand such things.”
The leaders said that since 1947 due to the constant compromises for purely “vested interests and ambitions and allurements of chair, these people who are friends of none -not even India whose interests they claim to represent in Kashmir, people of Kashmir are in the grip of occupation which they help consolidate.”
“ Had the interest of the Kashmiri nation, political economic or ethnic ever been dear to them they would have stood their ground for safeguarding it and not kept compromising on it one after the other for staying in power,” they said, adding, “The situation has come to such a pass today due to their repeated betrayals for the chair that even the basis on which their opportunistic patrons comprised the future of the nation and got some constitutional guarantees article like 370 and 35A is on the verge of getting scraped for complete integration with India.”
They said that as part of the ploy to break the resolve of the people and crush the movement a multipronged strategy of based on use of extreme force and coercion was adopted by GOI particularly after entering into a power alliance with the PDP. “The same PDP whose patron when he was Home Minister of India imposed AFSPA in J&K. All segments of society were targeted. While people were killed with impunity, pellet guns were brought to blind them and inflict physical and psychological scars. Thousands of people especially youth including children and elderly labelled as stone pelters incarcerated and tortured. Propaganda as a war weapon vigorously promoted against people while leadership persecuted and harassed through NIA and other agencies leading to the illegal detention of some in jails. CASO launched to persecute people in villages especially as a witch hunt against the youth.”
On the other hand, they said, a false binary between “tourism and terrorism” was created to target those associated with trade and tourism in order to break the back of both these industries. “Travel agents throughout India were threatened with consequences by RSS that no tourists should be send to Kashmir while GST laws that ended Kashmir’s fiscal autonomy in total violation of Article 370 implemented and the return of our power projects out-rightly rejected.”
To further dent the local trading market and create a fear psychosis among the people, they said, shameless act of braid chopping was undertaken and given the name of “hysteria”. The leaders said instead of feeling “ashamed” that not even one culprit was brought to book for attacking the dignity of the women and traumatizing them, Mehbooba is justifying the act casually as something that happens elsewhere!
The leaders said that people of Kashmir bore the brunt of all these extreme repressive measures with such bravery and resilience that GOI was compelled to relook at its policy on Kashmir. “No segments of society succumbed to this tremendous pressure including our traders and business community despite the fact that they were severely affected by the policy of revenge and punishment to which the local quislings were willing partners or mute spectators .”
JRL expressed surprise and dismay that some traders and members of the business community played into the hands of the collaborators and gave them an opportunity to insult the “supreme sacrifices offered by the nation.”
They asked all segments of society that as collective custodians of the sacrifices of the nation to be cautious and refrain from providing any opportunity to these “collaborators to insult and mock us and to expect no help from them as has been proven time and again.”
They said that people of Kashmir do not need the largess of GOI to survive as Mehbooba Mufti suggests and are no beggars. “Once we are our own masters Our resources both human and natural are enough to make us prosper.”
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