By Saima Bhat
KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
JKLF leader M Yasin Malik on Sunday said the ongoing protests are part of the struggle and will continue as long as people approve of it. He said the campaign against the leaders spreading the ongoing strike is aimed at defaming the Tehreek and should be condemned.
Malik who was set free on Saturday evening addressed the news conference Sunday afternoon. He is the second separatist leader who was permitted to interact with the media informally in last four months. Earlier Mirwaiz spoke to the media within 24 hours after he was driven home from the Cheshma Shahi sub jail. Interestingly he conducted the press conference on the road in Abu Guzar where his activist see-up a make-shift stage by fixing the party flag and managing a chair and a table.
“In last one year, almost 100 youth snatched weapons and joined militancy and Delhi accuses Pakistan for this,” Malik said, insisting that, “I was to tell Delhi that they must thank Pakistan. If they would have supported there would be 20,000 militants right now in Kashmir.”
Malik said such a large movement that involves every section of the society and the length and breadth of Kashmir can neither by instigated by some people not by any country. Its size suggests, it has to be indigenous, he insisted, adding this is the outcome of the suppression and torture of youth that Delhi launched in Kashmir in last one year.
Coming heavily on the people for criticizing the continuation of the ongoing strike – already 114 days old, Malik said it should be seen as part of the continuous process rather than being looked at in isolation. “Other similar movements are not very different,” Malik said, “Why Intifada is happening in Palestine every three years and how many similar movements were there in India’s freedom struggle?”
Malik said the protest calendars are not being thrust upon people but are being announced after consultation with them.
Thanking the masses especially students for the continuous Intifada for four months now, the JKLF chief said that it was because of common Kashmiri people that the Kashmir issue is back on the International platform. “It is because of the lives that youth lost and the eyes they lost that Kashmir is now again being talked internationally,” Malik said.
Malik, who was released on Saturday evening after the killing of Hizb commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani on July 08, said, “The peoples reaction after his death might have been a surprise for India and International community but for a Kashmiri its not.”
“After Indira-Abdullah accord some local youth protested non-violently but they were taken to Red-16 for interrogation and they were forced to take guns,” Malik said. “There was a student’s party – Islamic Students League and all the militants outfits had their commanders from the League background.”
Sharply reacting over the recent remarks of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti that she is the biggest ‘human right’s activist’ and people who had took guns in 1989 were ‘illiterates’, Malik said, “All militant groups in Kashmir were started by the students of Islamic Students League. I want to ask her, was Ishfaq Majeed an illiterate, was Dr Guru an illiterate, was Najeeb Khateeb an illiterate, was Salauh-u-din an Illiterate?”
Malik said the continuous ransacking of private properties by government forces under ongoing Operation Calm Down is aimed at misleading people that things are normal in Kashmir. He said there are 10,000 people in detention.
“She has crossed all limits,” Malik said while referring to Ms Mufti’s statement: “If these kids had gone to buy milk, toffees at the army camps.”
Malik reacted to the “propaganda” launched by Delhi media over the children of separatist leaders. “I haven’t seen my daughter from last two years, ask me how it feels and they say that my daughter is safer with her mother,” Malik said. “Where was their conscience when my wife and daughter were thrown out a hotel at 10 PM in Delhi?” Malik said Delhi wants to defame movement by defaming its captains, its leaders – Geelani, Mirwaiz, Asiya Andrabi and me.
For the burning of schools, Malik pointed fingers towards PDP. “When they could burn down temples in Islamabad and Bijbehara to topple down Gul Shah’s government in 1984 then why can’t they burn down schools now?” he asked. He also supported students by saying that separatists haven’t said if students have to appear in exams or not but it is their decision and separatist will support them. He blamed Ms Mufti and her Education Minister Naeem Akhter for the school blazes.
Malik said the government has pushed itself into confrontation with the students. In 1984, he said, when he was in PUC in SP School, they visited the Deputy Commissioner. “WE told him we were not ready for examinations and it took the government 24 hours to go for March session,” Maik said, “Why is this being made a big issue now.”
Thanking the people for Pir-Panchal and Kargil and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and different traders unions, Malik said it has left Indian columnists dumb who used to write Pir Panchal and Kargil doesn’t support Kashmir cause.
Malik blamed Prime Minister Modi for communal politics in Pir Panchal. “You are the only country that is publicly saying it will follow Isreal,” Malik said, insisting, “I want to tell you that history is witness that by imposing extreme form of cruelty, no nation has extinguished. But I challenge you to impose your extreme form and check this Azadi sentiment won’t die in Kashmir.”
Malik said the unity of separatists continues. “Whether one meets somebody or all, it does not matter,” he said. “I swear that this Joint resistance group will take the mission forward.”
