Srinagar : In occupied Kashmir, Indian police arrested the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leaders, Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi, Noor Muhammad Kalwal and others when they were holding a peaceful sit-in near Budshah Chowk in Srinagar, today.
Those arrested also included Professor Javaid, Muhammad Aslam Sheikh and Muhammad Irfan Khan. The police even did not spare a special person, Imtiyaz Ahmad Parray, and arrested him too. The arrestees have been shifted to central jail, Srinagar.
Prior to these arrests, the JKLF leaders and activists along with many others marched from Madina Chowk towards Lal Chowk but as soon as they reached near Budshah Chowk, Indian police swung into action, showered abuses on the participants of the sit-in and used brute force to arrest them.
The JKLF leaders, Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi and Muhammad Aslam Sheikh were injured in the police action.
The JKLF Chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, strongly condemning the police highhandedness in a statement said that the police attack on a peaceful sit-in was yet another example of state terrorism. He said that from last many months this sit-in programme announced by joint resistance leadership had been held peacefully but today police without any provocation used aggression against this programme.
He said that police and their political masters on daily basis issued statements and claimed that peaceful political activities were not stopped but the fact was that every little space for peaceful activities had been choked and the so-called rulers and the police were promoting violence by such measures.
Yasin Malik said that today’s peaceful sit-in was against Zakoora and Batamaloo bypass massacres by Indian forces in 1990 and also against the approval of more pellet guns to be used in occupied Kashmir. He said, “Zakoora and Batamaloo bypass like massacres remind us the Indian brutality in Kashmir and that freedom struggle of Jammu and Kashmir is defined by the sacred blood of our martyrs.†He said that tyranny, oppression, massacres and brutalities had not and could never defeat the will of Kashmiri people.
He said that the so-called Kashmiri rulers and other pro-India politicians and parties were responsible for the sufferings of the Kashmiris as they were the ones who provided legal cover to the acts of oppression.