Srinagar: A complete shutdown is being observed in Kashmir Valley on the call by Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) against the “ill-treatment” meted out to the ailing incarcerated JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik at New Delhi and also against the ongoing “aggression” of NIA and ED against Kashmiri resistance leaders, activists, senior businessmen, trade union leaders, kith and kin of resistance leaders and other people from different walks of life.
Reports said that almost all shops and other business establishments in Srinagar, the summer capital of the state, are closed along with schools and other educational institutions while public traffic is off of the roads. Skeletal private transport was however seen plying in Lal Chowk, the commercial hub of the Srinagar, and other other parts of the district. Reports of shutdown were also received from other district headquarters.
“NIA highhandedness has in fact forced senior resistance leader Muhammad Yasin Malik to go on a hunger strike and today his hunger strike has entered 12th day,” JRL had said in a statement issued here.
“The life of already ailing Yasin Malik who is admitted at RML Hospital Delhi is in danger and rulers and their agencies are busy in playing with his life callously,” the leadership had said.
It said that from early 2017, Government of India in its pursuit to take “revenge” from Kashmiris started NIA “terrorism”.
“A concocted and frivolous case was formulated and many resistance leaders, businessmen and journalists were targeted, arrested, summoned to Delhi and investigated. Many including Syed Shabir Ahmad Shah, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam ,Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saif-u-ullah, Raja Meraj-u-Din Kalwal, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar@ Bitta Karatay, businessmen Zahoor Ahmad Watali and Muhammad Aslam, Javid Ahmad and Shahid Yousuf Shah along with ailing Syeda Asiya Andrabi, Fehmida Sofi and Nahida Nasreen were arrested and put at Tihar Jail Delhi,” the leadership had said.
JRL leader and Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir Umar Farooq was summoned to Delhi recently. “Not only this, two sons of ailing senior leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani namely Syed Naeem Geelani and Syed Naseem Geelani are being continuously summoned and interrogated by NIA from 2017. Besides this, a maligning campaign was launched through media against Kashmiri resistance which is in fact going on unabated. It is against these arbitrary illegal and tyrannical measures unleashed by Indian rulers using NIA and ED tools that JRL leader Yasin Malik protested against and has started a hunger strike as a mark of protest against highhandedness,” JRL had said.
While appealing common masses of Kashmir to observe a complete shutdown on Tuesday, JRL had said that Yasin Malik has in fact put his life in danger while protesting against the “highhandedness” of NIA and also against its humiliating attitude towards Kashmiris.
“It is our collective responsibility to express solidarity with him and with all those who have and are facing NIA, ED wrath unleashed by Indian state apparatus by closing down our business, transport, offices and other activities and to send a clear message to the world that Kashmiris we as a nation are not going to budge before the military might of India,” JRL had said.
