KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Condemning excessive use of force and harassment unleashed on the devotees who had come to offer Friday prayers at the historic Jamia Masjid in Srinagar and on shopkeepers and the residents living in the adjoining areas of Gojwara, Rajouri Kadal, Bohri Kadal, Khawaja Bazaar, Bahuddin Sahab and Syedpora, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (m) Saturday termed the “massive presence of government forces as completely unjustified and undesirable”.
Stressing that people coming to offer Friday prayers at Jamia Masjid, Srinagar were “subjected to terror and harassment by government forces who feel intimidated them with their massive presence in the area”, APHC-m statement said, “unjustified use of tear smoke canisters and pepper gas grenades and indiscriminate firing of pellets and rubber bullets on the devotees was a deliberate attempt of the state administration to damage the centrality and significance of the historic Jamia Masjid.” “Dozens of people were critically injured with the use of force by police who also resorted to damaging goods of shopkeepers and excessive spraying of pepper gas resulting in suffocation and respiratory disorders among the residents of the area.”
The statement added, “they had time and again demanded that the state administration should not create problems with the massive deployment of forces in the area but the administration seems to be bent upon creating more problems in the area.”
Meanwhile, continuing with its people-to-people contact programme in north Kashmir’s Pattan region including Hakarpora, Kanterbug and other adjoining areas, the APHC-m delegation including Muhammad Musadiq Adil, Ghulam Nabi Zaki, Abdul Majeed Wani, Ghulam Hassan Mir, Jaffer Kashmiri informed the people about the efforts the conglomerate was putting at both the diplomatic and political level.
Promising that the Hurriyat amalgam is “the custodian of the selfless sacrifices that people offered over the years for Kashmir cause”, the Hurriyat leaders said, “these sacrifices were the real assets of the on-going resistance movement and that the conglomerate would make all possible efforts to resolve the Kashmir issue as per the wishes and aspiration of the people of Kashmir.”
