Srinagar: Paying glowing tributes to Mukhtar Ahmed Khan of Arizal and Muhammad Amin Mir of Pampore, the two armed youth killed in an encounter at Zugoo Arizal area of central Kashmir’s Budgam, the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that killing of youth and the continuing bloodshed in Kashmir is deeply painful.
In a statement issued here, the JRL said Indian intransigence has pushed the youth to the wall as they fight the occupation and spill their blood to resist it, while seeking their legitimate right, the right to self-determination JRL said that it was because of the lingering Kashmir dispute besides New Delhi’s obduracy that Kashmir is witnessing bloodbath almost every day as the youth are selectively being killed under a planned policy.
According to the statement, the Leadership said despite the large-scale killing of youth, voices to demand the exercise of their birth right, the right to self-determination, is getting shriller with every passing day and the resolve of the people of Kashmir to fight the worst oppression un-leashed on them by the rulers of Delhi is getting strengthened on the ground. The JRL also expressed its deep anguish and concern over the prolonged and illegal detention of a number of resistance leaders including Shabir Ahmed Shah, Advocate Shahid-ul- Islam, Altaf Ahmed Fantoosh, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehrajudin Kalwal, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Shahid Yousuf, businessman Zahoor Watali and women leaders that include Asiya Andrabi her close associates Fehmeeda Sofi and Nahida Nasreen who are lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail under the fictitious charges framed by the NIA and ED and said that these leaders are even deprived of the basic fundamental right of free trial as the hearing of the cases is being deliberately delayed and they not even produced before the respective courts with the sole intention of prolonging their illegal detention which is nothing but a pure political vendetta. The leadership said that by using the delaying tactics, the hearing of their cases has now been postponed to December 5. The Leadership said the jail authorities are not treating these prisoners well and they are even denied the basic health care facilities including medicine etc. They said it is regrettable that internationally recognized rules of treatment with prisoners in jails are being trampled in a country which claims to be the largest democracy in the world. The JRL urged the world forums, OHCHR, Amnesty International, International Red-Cross, Asia Watch, and others to take notice of the plight of Kashmiri prisoners lodged in various jails including Tihar-Delhi, Kahtua, Udhampur, Kotbalwal, Central-jail-Srinagar and get a firsthand account of the ill-treatment meted out to the prisoners. The JRL urged these bodies to intervene and impress upon New-Delhi to end the unjustified and illegal detention of Kashmiri inmates languishing the prisons. Meanwhile, the leadership strongly condemned the joint raids by police and other forces in Damhal-Khashipora, in Anantnag district where two 70-years-old men and 20 students were detained, who were about to appear in the exams and missed that because of their illegal detention. The JRL termed the police action brutal, stating that forces are playing with the career of students and expressed solidarity with them, terming the police action against them as totally unjustified and illegal.
