Srinagar: Reiterating call for boycott of Panchayati polls, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday said elections has no meaning in a place “where all basic human, democratic, political and even religious rights of people are trampled and usurped through military might.”
“Where democracy itself is the biggest casualty, what can local or any election achieve,” Mirwaiz asked while addressing the Friday gathering at historic Jamia Masjid.
“The resistance leadership and the people of Kashmir have time and again rejected every election thrust on them with a view to dilute the disputed nature of Kashmir and strengthen and illegitimate Indian rule.”
Mirwaiz said government of India can’t stop people of Kashmir from demanding their “legitimate right, the right to self determination.”
Mirwaiz said people of Kashmir will once again reject the “sham polls” commencing from Saturday in the same way they out rightly rejected the Urban Local Body polls and send a message to one and all that people of Kashmir reject the “farcical exercises”.
He said each day, military and police cordons are laid in towns and villages where youth are killed, maimed, thrashed or incarcerated while homes are blasted, elderly harassed and placed under detention.
“Even women are killed and beaten, leadership arbitrarily caged and put in jails. Where all power and control flows from the barrel of the gun in such a place holding elections is not only meaningless but a mockery.”
Mirwaiz said a strange kind of “democracy” is in practice in Kashmir at the behest of lakhs of state forces present here with unbridled powers given to them and absolute immunity from all accountability. “They can barge into any house and kill anybody at their whim and will and or tie a civilian to jeeps as human shields and be rewarded for it!”
Mirwaiz said jails within and outside are filled by the young and old who are slapped with draconian PSA for their political conviction while witch hunt of leadership in fictitious cases is the order of the day.
No one was averse to elections and it’s an established democratic practice across the globe where people exercise their choice and decide who and how they want to be ruled but in Kashmir , he said, that is not the case.
“It is used as a means to continue forced rule,” Mirwaiz said, adding that elections will continue to be futile exercise in Kashmir unless democracy was not restored and allowed to flourish in the real sense. “And the first step to that is to allow people of disputed J&K to decide their fate by giving them the basic right to self determination,” he said, adding, “Unless, New Delhi takes concrete steps to resolve the core issue of Kashmir, people will continue to stay away from every so called election.”
Mirwaiz took a dig at the authorities for claiming that elections were for the development, stating that when people’s fundamental right, the right to live, has been snatched, development hardly matters .
Mirwaiz urged people to observe complete strike tomorrow and follow the JRL’s protest and shutdown program announced for the poll bound areas on election days.
Meanwhile after Friday prayers Mirwaiz visited the residence of Senoir Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani’s to condole the demise of Geelani’s eldest son-in –law Ghulam Hassan Makhdoomi, who passed away recently after a brief spell of illness at SKIMS, Soura. Mirwaiz also offered special fateh prayers for the deceased and prayed for highest standards in Janah for him.
