Srinagar: In occupied Kashmir, the joint Hurriyet leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik has called for complete shutdown on August 15, India’s Independence Day, and appealed to the teachers, students and their parents to boycott all functions related to the event.
The joint leadership also warned the authorities not to force teachers, students and their parents to participate in these functions. It also appealed to the parents that they should stop their children from participating in the August 15 related functions.
“We are not against the freedom of any country and will provide them a chance to decide the future by allowing independent plebiscite in Kashmir, till then it doesn’t have any moral and constitutional right to organize the freedom celebrations in the territory,†the joint leadership said.
“India itself attained freedom from British rule on August 15, 1947 and became an independent country but only after 72 days of this freedom, this country snatched the freedom rights of the Kashmiri people and forcibly occupied this region by landing its troops on 27 October and since then this occupation continues,†it said.
It said, Kashmir is an internationally acknowledged dispute and Delhi can neither succeed in changing the status and nature of the territory by its rigid and stubborn policy nor can be this region kept permanently under the forced control, they said and added that any tinkering or fiddling in article 35A won’t (state Subject law) be tolerated.
The leadership said New Delhi is desperate to tamper with the Muslim majority character of Jammu and Kashmir.
Cautioning people against the nefarious designs of Delhi and its henchmen in the territory, it said people in Kashmir would not allow anyone to alter or interfere with the integrity and special status of the territory and would safeguard it at all costs.
“Our demand for Right to Self Determination is purely a democratic demand and India has also promised to fulfill that demand on national as well as international levels but this country backtracked from its promises and is now busy in suppressing the genuine and just voices of the Kashmiri nation,†it added.
