KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Amid curfew, restrictions and curbs, the government once again used “excessive” force to stop Kashmiri Muslims from offering Friday congregational prayers in the main Masjids, Khanqahs, shrines and Imam Barahs and for the ninth consecutive Friday, people were barred from offering congregational prayers at Kashmir’s historic Masjid, Jamia Masjid Srinagar, said APHC-m this evening.
“Such totalitarian measures by the ruling regime are among the worst form of assault on the religious rights of Muslims of the valley,” APHC-m spokesperson said in a statement.
Expressing strong resentment over disallowing of press conference of veteran resistance leader, Syed Ali Geelani on the on-going situation, by police with force, the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq led Hurriyat Conference said, “gagging and caging the resistance leadership is the only response left with the frustrated regime.”
“Geelani Sahab’s revelation in the press release about a ‘kill list’ of resistance leaders activists, and prominent Kashmiri personalities belonging to different sections of society supporting the people struggle, by the Government of India (GoI) and its local collaborators that they would be targeted would have serious consequences for which GoI itself would be squarely held responsible,” the Hurriyat Conference asserted.
Asking people to be cautious, the spokesperson said, “during 1990s too, under a well-planned conspiracy, prominent political and religious leaders of Kashmir, intellectuals, writers, journalists, doctors and lawyers were killed and the state would often blame unidentified gunmen for these assassinations and the irony is that none of these unidentified gunmen have been identified till this day.”
“While more forces are being sent to the valley to kill and torture people,” the APHC-m spokesperson appealed to the nations and people that believe in justice and humanity, international human rights organizations, United Nations Organisation (UNO), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other international bodies to play come forward and play their role in ending the killing spree and collective torture being “inflicted upon Kashmiri civilians by the Indian forces”.
Meanwhile, the massive public gathering at Jenab Sahab Soura protested against the arrest of the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and condemned the government for keeping Kashmir’s religious head under continuous arrest.
Condemning the action of police and government forces for trying to suppress the voice of the freedom-loving people, the spokesperson said, “they had unleashed a reign of terror by firing tear smoke shells, pepper grenades, PAVA shells, pellets and bullets at peaceful protestors and expressed strong resentment over night raids, arrests and ruthless thrashing up of people.”
