Rising Kashmir - Geelani bans anti-India slogans
Says Govt backing stone throwers
Asem Mohiuddin
Sopore, May 02: Reacting to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s statement of blaming him for the death of a Natipora resident in stone pelting at Batamaloo, chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G), Syed Ali Geelani Sunday blamed the government of backing stone pelters and added that he supports peaceful protests and condemns acts of stone pelting and anti-India sloganeering.
Addressing a gathering at Sopore after visiting the family of a local cable operator, Ashiq Hussain who was recently killed by unknown gunmen, Geelani said he does not support people who raise derogatory and inflammatory slogans.
“We protest against the illegal occupation of India. However, we have no personal differences with the people of India. So we need not to raise slogans like ‘Bharat Teri Moot Ayee’ (Death has come unto India) and should not indulge in stone pelting,” Geelani said.
Regarding the death of 45-year-old cable operator by unknown gunmen, Geelani said it was difficult to trace the culprits when the whole State has turned into a garrison due to massive presence of troops.
“In the past Ikhwanis (renegades) killed hundreds of innocent people, destroyed properties and charged ransom for lives. Then too government called them unknown gunmen. The truth only prevailed when people found them in company with troops in their barracks and camps. Today again government makes same claims whenever such killing takes place,” the Hurriyat (G) chairman said.
Accusing the government agencies of supporting stone-pelters in Sopore, the octogenarian leader said he strongly condemns the killing of Shafiq Ahmed like he condemned such killings in the past. “We also condemned the killing of an infant when stone-pleters in Chakloo Baramulla stopped the vehicle.”
Geelani said that if the government was concerned about such killings and blamed Hurriyat for these why did chief minister push under the carpet the killings by cops like Parvez Ahmad Hajam, Amir Ahmad and many others.
“I have been informed by reliable sources that the youth who indulge in stone-pelting unnecessarily in Sopore town and force shutdown are supported by government agencies,” Geelani said. “Police slaps stone-pelters in Srinagar and other parts of the Valley with PSAs but in Sopore they arrest them and later release them in the evening,” he said.
“We see in parts of Srinagar, Sopore and Baramulla where intellectuals, educated and respectable class of the society resist the Indian rule, the government sabotages them with the use of lethal force,” he said.
Asking mainstream political parties to resign and represent the true emotions of the people, Geelani said people who spent lavishly on themselves and remain confined to the assemblies should know in true sense what people of Kashmir want.
“The slave people of Jammu and Kashmir don’t need railway lines, flyovers, roads, daily-wage jobs but freedom from slavery, imperialism and exploitation,” Geelani said.
He said all mainstream political parties were informers of troops. They don’t identify with the freedom struggle of the people and send them to jails in Jammu to torture them in the scorching heat. They do it just to fulfill their personal interests.
Meanwhile, Geelani urged people to continue freedom struggle. “People of Kashmir will never succumb and continue peaceful struggle.”
He said exploitation under imperialism by the India was at its peak. “Around 5000 kanal of forest land in Shopian has been occupied by army and around 3 to 4 lakh trees will be chopped by them to set up the bunkers there. About 28 lakh kanal of land has also been occupied by troops.”