Islamabad: (Parliament Times) While denouncing in strong terms the illegal detention of party president Shabir Ahmed Shah and other leaders the former convener of All Parties Hurriyat Conference and senior vice president Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) Mehmood Ahmed Saghar has said that Indian authorities since long have been using arrests, house detentions as a weapon of war to cow down pro-freedom leaders besides suppressing the voice of dissent in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
In a press statement issued here on Wednesday the DFP leader said, “The so called NIA that is entirely working on whims and fancies of New Delhi has been assigned the task to malign Kashmiri leaders just to tarnish their public image besides sowing the seeds of discord among the masses in Kashmirâ€. Since Indian authorities have miserably failed to suppress Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle, Saghar observed that Indian secret agencies have orchestrated a new plot whereby a state-sponsored vilification campaign to demonize pro-freedom leaders was going on unabated. He said that the Indian secret agencies, known for starting smear campaigns against Kashmiris, were hatching conspiracies to demean and debase the movement leadership by involving them in fabricated cases.
Citing DFP president Shabir Ahmed Shah’s decades’ long battle against oppression Saghar said that Shah has spent more than half of his life in Indian jails. Terming Indian authorities’ act as a flagrant violation of basic human rights he said that such tactics would not deter Shah and other Hurriyat leaders from pursuing the collective cause for which the people of Kashmir have rendered huge sacrifices .
He said that India must bear in mind the fact that Kashmiris could not be cowed down or coerced into submission. “Such mean and brutal measures could not deter Kashmiri leaders from continuing their just struggle for their right to self-determination”, he said adding that Shabir Ahmad Shah’s life was like an open book and by resorting to such vengeful tactics, authorities can’t cow down the pro-freedom leader’s spirit and resolve.
Terming Indian authorities actions as a flagrant violations of basic human rights he said that India that keeps harping on high values of democracy must realize the fact that choking space for political dissent and depriving people of their fundamental human rights was against the true spirit of democracy and in contravention of international law.
It may be recalled here that Indian authorities arrested APHC General Secretary and Chairman of Democratic Freedom Party, Shabir Ahmad Shah, late Tuesday night from his residence in Srinagar where he was under house detention for the past several months.
According to a spokesman of the party [DFP[ the personnel of Indian police and Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the house of DFP Chairman, took him into custody and lodged him at Humhama police station.
