Daily Times

SRINAGAR: Thousands of people raising pro-freedom and anti-India slogans on Sunday participated in the rallies held across Indian-occupied Kashmir including Pulwama, Shopian and Islamabad districts to condemn Indian brutalities.

Religious scholars from all school of thoughts and Hurriyat leaders and activists including Ghulam Nabi Sumji, Mir Hafizullah, Mohammad Yousuf Fallahi and Mohammad Yousuf Mir addressed the rallies.

An anti-India rally led by the chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Freedom League, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, was also held in Muzaffarabad on Sunday. Participants of the rally urged the United Nations to force India to abandon its illegal occupation over Held Kashmir.

In a latest development, as many as 500 activists belonging to several pro-India political parties have publicly resigned from their positions in south Kashmir and announced to join the ongoing Intifada in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Indian forces killed three civilians in a gun battle on Sunday, the Indian army said, as the region reels from weeks of deadly violence between protesters and security forces.

“Three people were killed in the fight. Three assault rifles were also recovered from the site of the gun battle,” army spokesman Colonel N N Joshi told AFP.

Indian authorities continued to impose curfew and other restrictions in the territory for the 44th consecutive day. The authorities sealed all entry and exit points leading to Lal Chowk area of Srinagar. The troops even did not spare journalists and aimed guns at the staff members of Srinagar-based Greater Kashmir and Kashmir Uzma in Srinagar. The journalists were harassed, abused and given life threats. A prayer leader was ruthlessly beaten up by the troops in Kupwara.

Given the gravity of the situation, All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) Secretary General Shabbir Ahmad Shah urged the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to initiate practical steps to stop the loss of human lives in Indian-held Kashmir.

Though UN chief’s statement in response to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s letter is encouraging and a welcome step, but the world body is only making a lip service and not taking practical steps, said a statement quoting the APHC secretary general as saying.

“The UN is duty bound to play an effective role in settlement of Kashmir dispute. Despite 18 resolutions passed in the UN Security Council, India has reneged from its promises and has turned this heaven on earth a hell,” he said.

Shabbir Ahmad Shah expressed the hope that Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would vehemently highlight Indian atrocities in Kashmir in upcoming speech in the UN in September and would call for right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir, Kashmir Media Service reported.

Reiterating his appeal to people to join anti-India protests, he said, “The world is keenly observing us and we have to continue our peaceful protests.”

Separately, a senior Indian minister appeared Sunday to support police in a row over free speech that saw Amnesty slapped with sedition charges for an event about the disputed Kashmir region.

Police in the southern city of Bangalore filed the initial charges last week following complaints that slogans on independence for the disputed region had been chanted at the event organised by the rights group.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley compared the freedom slogans to those at another event earlier this year at a prestigious New Delhi university that saw a student leader arrested on sedition charges.

“During an event in Bangalore, there were slogans for freedom (from India)… it was organised by a group that receives a lot of funding from abroad,” Jaitley said at a rally in Kashmir, without directly naming Amnesty.

Amnesty has said the event was focused on human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Rights campaigners have long accused India’s governments of using the British-era sedition law to clamp down on dissent.

At least 63 civilians have been killed and more than 6,000 injured in the most recent clashes between protesters and security forces, sparked by the killing a top freedom fighter, Burhan Wani.