Daily Times

It was the first time since the Partition that no holiday and official functions were held to commemorate the Kashmir Martyrs’ Day on Monday in Indian Occupied Kashmir. According to Kashmir Media Service, following the revocation of Article 370 on August 5, last year, India had issued a list of gazette holidays for the occupied territory, omitting July 13 from the list. “In December last year, the list of gazette holidays had no mention of martyrs’ day on July 13. Therefore, the question doesn’t arise of holding any official function or declaring a holiday on Monday,” a senior official said in a media interview. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as the then prime minister of occupied Jammu and Kashmir had declared July 13 as martyrs’ day in memory of those who revolted against the Dogra rule on July 13, 1931. Kashmir commemorated the day as Martyrs’ Day and puppet chief minister, ministers and DGPs used to pay tributes at the official programmed across the territory. It was worth mentioning here that on the 13th of July 1931 when the troops of Dogra Maharaja had killed 22 Kashmiris, one after another, who had turned up in thousands outside Central Jail in Srinagar during the court proceedings against one Abdul Qadeer who had asked Kashmiri people to defy the Dogra rule. It was time for Namaz-e-Zuhr when a young man started the call for prayers (Azaan) but was shot dead by the Maharaja’s soldiers. Thus, 22 youth sacrificed their lives till the completion of Azaan.