Islamabad, Mar 19: Blaming New Delhi of exploiting Jammu and Kashmir’s natural, water and resources Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani Friday said while the state reels under darkness, its water resources are being harnessed by Delhi for power generation.
“Our water resources have been handed-over to Delhi for power generation while we get only 11 percent of electricity as royalty and our cities, towns and villages continue to reel under perpetual darkness,” Geelani said while addressing a massive gathering in this South Kashmir town after Friday prayers.
Geelani said even the state’s land and forest resources are not being spared. “While thousands of kanals of land have been occupied by the troops, in Shopian district the troopers recently occupied 5200 kanals of land and felled 3 to 4 lakh trees,” he said.
Geelani said that the tanned leather extracted from the slaughtered animals in Kashmir fetches Rs 50 crore per annum to the Kashmiri traders while the same leather after coming to the state as a finished product draws around Rs 5 million in return.
Accusing the Government of India of hatching a conspiracy to manipulate the upcoming population census - 2011.
“New Delhi with the help of its puppet government in the state is planning to hire the services of employees from outside the state to conduct-2011 census and the Kashmiri employees will be kept away from the exercise,” Geelani said.
Terming the proposed step as an attempt to hoodwink the international community, Geelani said, “Government has from past so many years been deliberately trying to give an impression to the outside world that the Muslim population in the state of Jammu and Kashmir is less. But the fact is its opposite. Pre-1947, the Muslim population of the state constituted of 85 percent, but the successive census of 1961 and 1981 brought it down to 69 percent and 64.5 percent respectively.”
He said that his party will soon come up with a concrete data about the facts and figures on demographic manipulations.
He said that in 1947, 5 lakh Muslims were martyred and other 1 lakh forced to migrate in Jammu and in the last twenty years around one lakh people have laid their lives for freedom in accordance with the Islamic principles.
Coming down heavily on the political parties advocating secularism in the state, Geelani said, “Secularism completely denies the role of religion in politics. But Islam is the complete way of life and we are fighting for Azadi to implement Islam in the state .We reject all other systems of governance be it secularism, socialism, communism or capitalism or dictatorship and history is testimony to the fact that all of these forms have failed”.
“Our youth are being killed, booked under draconian laws and severely tortured . The chastity of our mothers and sisters is being outraged. But the sacrifices rendered by the people won’t go waste and the mission of martyrs will be accomplished,” said Geelani.
Asking the youth to take oath of rejecting the secularism, Geelani said, “ Islam guarantees equal rights to all religious minorities and it was the responsibility of the majority Muslim population to safeguard their rights even if they happen to be your enemies.”
Maintaining that Tehreek-e-Hurriyat would in no case unite with those people who are for secularism, he said, “I don’t hold any vengeance with anybody norI have any personal grudge with anybody but don’t support those forces who are for secularism.”
He said that Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah too advocated for secularism and then in 1975 he termed his 22 years of struggle in jail as wastage of time.
“This is in record that I was the one who told Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah in the assembly in 1977 that he is responsible for the sufferings of the people of India, Pakistan as well Kashmiris,” said Geelani.
He also criticized the elements who are propagating Kashmiriyat and culturally degrading the society by organizing singing competitions and then terming it as part of Sufism.
“Kashmiriyat is an idol like secularism,” he said.
Emphasizing upon the people to raise donations for the victims of conflict Geelani said, “ Their party has decided to collect donations at all the district headquarters so that the victims of conflict are not left to fend for themselves”.
Geelani also rejected the media reports of demanding compensation for the Sopur encounter victims and asked it to maintain utmost refrain while reporting the sensitive issues.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:00:00 IST