Srinagar: In occupied Kashmir, scores of people were injured when Indian troops fired pellets, bullets and teargas shells to prevent people from staging anti-India demonstrations and conducting a march towards the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, today. Call for the march was given by the joint resistance leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik to observe Youm-e-Istiqlal, today. The puppet authorities imposed curfew and other restrictions in Srinagar and other towns to stop people from conducting the march. The authorities also sealed Jamia Masjid disallowing people from offering Juma prayers on 18th successive Friday, today.Indian police locked the gates of the Hyderpora residence of Syed Ali Gilani from outside to stop him from leading the march. The police whisked away Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a police jeep when he stepped out of his Nigeen residence and tried to march towards the Jamia Masjid. The police also arrested Hurriyet leader, Abdul Ahad Parra, in Rajbagh area of Srinagar. The occupation authorities continued to put other Hurriyet leaders including Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi Al-Safvi, Masarrat Aalam Butt, Aasiya Andrabi, Bilal Siddiqui, Zafar Akbar Butt and Ayaz Muhammad Akbar under house arrest or in custody to prevent them from leading the march. They were not even allowed to offer Juma prayers.Despite curfew and restrictions, people took to the streets in Srinagar, Badgam, Ganderbal, Baramulla, Bandipora, Kupwara, Islamabad, Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and other areas and tried to conduct the march. They shouted pro-Pakistan, pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. They also waved Pakistani flags. Indian troops and police personnel subjected the demonstrators to brute force at various places injuring scores of them. Meanwhile, complete shutdown continued on 126th consecutive day, today, against the civilian killings and other brutalities of Indian police and troops in the Kashmir Valley. A 14-year-old girl, Munazah Rashid, succumbed at a hospital in Srinagar, taking the death toll in the ongoing uprising to 113. Munazah Rashid, the 6th standard student, suffered acute breathlessness when Indian paramilitary forces fired PAVA and teargas shells on protesters at Anchar in Soura area of Srinagar on November 2. Since then, she was on a ventilator but breathed her last, yesterday. Indian troops, in their fresh act of state terrorism, martyred three youth at Torna Rampur in Uri area of Baramulla.
Senior Hurriyet leader, Professor Abdul Ghani Butt, speaking at a function held at his residence in Srinagar to release his autobiography “Beyond me†urged India and Pakistan to devise a mechanism for result-oriented talks to settle the Kashmir dispute.
Speakers at a conference in the Hague, the capital of Holland said that India could not defeat the brave Kashmiri people, who were committed to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination. The speakers included the AJK Prime Minster, Raja Farooq Haider, Ali Raza Syed, and Raja Zeb Khan and Pakistan Ambassador to Netherland, Ms Effat Imran Gardezi.