KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Condemning the harassment and detentions of the people, cordons and search operations in different areas of Kashmir valley ahead of the January 26, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (m) Monday said Kashmir valley has been converted into a “Police state”.
Terming the harassment of people and detaining of innocent civilians in the name of security arrangements and law and order measures as “deplorable, spokesperson of APHC-m stated it as “highly condemnable”.
Denouncing the action of the government for “giving a free hand to forces” in various areas of Shehar-e-Khaas Srinagar, the spokesperson said, “they were indulging in atrocities, using excessive force on civilians, conducting arrests and detentions of the people at will, firing tear gas shells in densely populated areas with the result number of women falling unconscious and children and elderly getting harassed.”
“There was no justification for the massive presence of government forces around the historic Jamia Masjid Srinagar and other adjacent areas on Fridays,” the APHC-m spokesperson said, “this was creating an atmosphere of fear and scare in the entire area and complicating the problems of the people living in the area besides becoming a hurdle for people coming to offer Friday congregational prayers at Kashmir’s main mosque.”
Stressing that APHC-m, had been stressing upon the state administration not to make the sensitive area of Jamia Mosque problematic with excessive and unnecessary deployment of forces, which creates terror in the area and becomes cause of intimidation of the innocent civilians, the spokesperson added, “it seems that this was being deliberately done to end the centrality, significance and importance of the historic Mosque.”
Meanwhile, reacting to news reports that a number of Kashmiri youth undergoing internship with various organizations in New Delhi under the Udaan scheme are being forced to return to Kashmir even before their internship was completed, as shocking Hurriyat (m) slammed the decision saying it was akin to playing with their future.
“The scheme was started, after the strong criticism at local and international level for killing more than 100 youth in 2010, to provide employment to the unemployed educated youth of Kashmir but now all this has proved to be empty promises,” the Hurriyat (m) spokesperson said. “Not only under the Udaan scheme, Kashmiri students studying in different states outside Kashmir under the Prime Minister’s Scholarship schemes, were also being cheated forcing them to end their courses midway and return home, which was a highly condemnable.”
