Daily Times

In occupied valley of Kashmir, chief commander of Hizbul Mujahideen Riyaz Naikoo was martyred along with his associate Aadil Ahmed during a cordon-and-search operation by Indian troops in Pulwama district on Wednesday.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Riyaz Naikoo had taken over as commander of Hizbul Mujahideen after popular young commander Burhan Wani was martyred by Indian troops in a fake encounter in Kokarnag area of Islamabad district on July 8, 2016.

In the wake of the killing of Riyaz Naikoo and Aadil Ahmad, the authorities suspended mobile internet services in the entire occupied territory and imposed curfew-type restrictions.

Earlier, the troops martyred another two youth in Sharshali area of the district raising the toll to four in a day. People took to the streets at different places in Pulwama district to pretest the killing of Riyaz Naikoo and other young Kashmiris. Many people were injured when the Indian troops and police resorted to brute force to quell the protests.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference while paying tributes to Riyaz Niakoo and other martyrs in a statement issued in Srinagar has appealed to the people to come out in large numbers and offer funerals of the martyrs. The APHC also called for general strike on Thursday against the killings. People have been asked to offer funeral prayers in absentia for the martyrs in their villages, hometowns and cities on Friday.

The Hurriyat leaders and organizations including Ashraf Sehrai, Umar Aadil Dar, Yasmeen Raja, Yousuf Naqash, Muslim League, Peoples League, Students and Youth Forum, Tehreek-e-Wahdat-e-Islami, Ummat-e-Islami, Karwaan-e-Islami and Jammu and Kashmir Young Men’s League said that youth like Riyaz Naikoo and Aadil Ahmad will continue to live in the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people and that they will remain the symbol of Kashmiris’ resistance against India. They urged the Kashmiri people to come to the streets against the genocide of Kashmiri youth by Indian troops and express solidarity with the families of the martyrs. They maintained that though India is snatching youths physically but it cannot crush the Kashmiri people’s freedom sentiment. They made it clear that the Kashmiris are ready to face Indian bullets on their chests but will never surrender their just cause.

The leaders and organizations underlined that the sacrifices of the Kashmiri youth will remain a golden page of Kashmir’s history, adding that these martyrs are the torch-bearers of freedom struggle and that their sacred blood will further spur the freedom movement. They said the Kashmiri people will never forget the sacrifices of their youth and vowed that their mission will be accomplished at all costs.

They said that Kashmiris are paying the cost of the unresolved Kashmir dispute for the past over seven decades. “Over 95,000 Kashmiris have been killed since 1989 alone. More than 8,000 have been subjected to custodial disappearance. Thousands more have been lodged in jails to punish them for their affiliation with the ongoing freedom movement,” they said, adding that Indian rulers have been subjecting the people of occupied valley to the worst kind of state terrorism for the last over seven decades but these brutalities increased manifold since Narendra Modi-led fascist Bharatiya Janata Party came into power in India in 2014. They said the Indian barbarism has witnessed an increase of dangerous proportion since August 05 last year.

The leaders and organizations maintained that unending killing of Kashmiris is a big question mark on global human rights bodies. They said the criminal silence adopted by the international community including the UN has given a sense of impunity to New Delhi. They urged the world community to hold India accountable for its brutalities in occupied Kashmir and force it to give the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination.