Srinagar: Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik strongly condemned the ill and inhuman treatment meted out to the political prisoners from Kashmir lodged in Kathua jail.
“Many inmates lodged there have been severely thrashed by the jail authorities which is not only unacceptable but against the basic principles of humanity,” they said in a statement issued here.
The Leadership said similar treatment is given to the political prisoners from Kashmir time and again who are lodged in various jails out of Jammu and Kashmir which is a serious concern and a cause of worry.
They said that many ploys are being employed to prolong the detention period of Kashmiri prisoners as they are not even produced before the respective courts on their fixed dates of hearing which is nothing but sheer vendetta.
The leadership said that despite clear-cut directions from the supreme court of India that prisoners be lodged to the jails closer to their homes, dozens of Kashmiri prisoners were shifted outside the State and are lodged in various parts of India where they are facing “extreme suppression” in-terms of absence of all the basic facilities guaranteed by the jail manuals.
The situation, they said, is more worse in the jails that include Kathua, Udhampur, Kotbalwal, Delhi, Tihar and other prisons, where Kashmiri inmates are subjected to worst form inhuman behaviour in a brazen violation of basic human rights.
The leadership urged the world bodies and international organisations fighting for the prisoner’s justice to visit the jails in Jammu and Kashmir and also various prisons in India where Kashmiri prisoners are lodged and to build pressure on New Delhi to release the inmates who have are facing no offence other than the “demand for their legitimate right—the right to self-determination.”
JRL strongly denounced the massive crackdown launched by the forces across south Kashmir, especially the day-long siege of more than a dozen villages in Awantipore terming it as the ultimate repression. They said that people of all ages were asked to stay out of their homes for hours together in the bone chilling cold while as forces conducted door to door searches in dozens of villages and asked people to face the parade is the worst form of human rights that deserves highest form of condemnation. The leadership said that people of south Kashmir have been left at the mercy of government forces who have crossed all limits of oppression to push people into submission.
Commenting on some media reports about existence of some Joint Resistance Centre (JRC) in UK claimed to be the reflection of JRL in Kashmir.
JRL has distanced itself from the centre: “we have neither authorized anybody to form this Centre nor do we know anything about it”.
“While we appreciate the role of the Kashmiri diaspora and believe Kashmiris living in any part of the world should act as ambassadors for the Kashmir cause and should be concerned about the happenings in their homeland, making any forum and attributing it to the leadership without any prior consent or information creates confusion and misunderstanding.”
JRL said that Kashmiri diasporas is active at their respective places for long period and “we wish they all unite by their hearts and minds to put a collective flight against the oppressor at diplomatic front, but it needs a common and collective efforts by everybody after proper deliberations and consent by the leadership on ground.”
