‘People leadership on the same page over Kashmir dispute’
Srinagar: Soon after his release from house arrest, Chairman Hurriyat Conference (M) and AAC patron Mirwaiz Umar Farooq convened an emergency meeting at Mirwaiz Manzil Rajouri Kadal on Monday over the prevailing situation.
A statement issued to GNS said youth and AAC activists greeted Mirwaiz with pro-freedom and pro-Islam slogans.
Addressing the meeting, Mirwaiz expressed grave concern over the current situation when India and Pakistan are engaged in an eyeball to eyeball conflict and the region is in great danger of destruction.
Mirwaiz said he has repeatedly said that war is no solution to the problems between India and Pakistan especially for the resolution of Kashmir dispute and its precarious offshoots.
Kashmir dispute will have to be eventually resolved by peaceful means, he said adding that while the region is facing threat of further escalation in the meantime efforts and ploys are being employed by New Delhi to undermine the dispute and muzzle all voices by “extremely coercive” measures.
He said that change in the disputed nature of Kashmir would face stiff resistance from every Kashmiri as in this regard people of Kashmir and the leadership are on the same page.
Kashmir dispute was purely a political and human issue that needs to be resolved by means of sustained dialogue and not by any war or skirmishes, he said adding that it has again become evident that non-resolution of Kashmir issue was the major threat to peace for entire subcontinent and South Asia.
Mirwaiz said “oppressive measures and threats to muzzle voices in Kashmir by jailing pro-resolution leaders, imposing curfew, and launching a massive crackdown on the socio-religious leaders, cadres and imams will be met with stiff resistance”. He said in this situation, people and the leadership have to remain united to face the “onslaught unleashed on us”.
Mirwaiz termed the ban on the Kashmir’s socio-religious organisation Jama’at-e-Islami as highly undemocratic, unconstitutional and uncalled for. He said imposing five year ban on JeI amounts to direct intervention into religious rights and practices, which deserves highest form of condemnation.
“GoI’s fresh oppression in the form of NIA and ED raids on homes of pro-resolution leaders and common people is aimed at intimidating leadership and people which was destined to fail,” he said, “These agencies are trying to defame leadership and frame them in fictitious and fake cases to legally put them in the jails but such moves can in no way change the reality of the history of dispute nor situation on ground nor can it break the commitment of people of Kashmir who have all been in some form or other struggling for resolution.”
Mirwaiz said that every attempt aimed at diluting or tinkering with Article 35A would face stiff resistance by all sections of people of Kashmir.
GoI has always used ploys to dilute the disputed nature of Kashmir and this time they have taken a legal route to rolling back the state subject law but Kashmiri people and the leadership are united to fight all moves tooth and nail, he said. (GNS)
