Srinagar, July 16: The Hurriyat Conference (G) Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani today expressed serious concern over the huge expenditures on marriages, terming it suicidal for the society.
 “On the one hand, a section of people spend crores on unnecessary expenditures in marriages, on the other hand, our daughters in poor families are sitting unmarried even after crossing their marriageable age for want of dowry and other expenditure,” said Geelani, while addressing a public meeting at Khonmoh.
 He urged the people to make Nikah easy and celebrate it in accordance with the teachings and traditions of Islam and desist from following the un-Islamic practices and traditions.
 “The biggest cause for prolonging our slavery is our own peoples’ weaknesses. Our people, on the one hand, welcome Geelani, and on other hand, they are also put flower garlands on pro-India people for their petty interests,” he said.
 Expressing serious concern over the plight of the political detainees serving detention in different jails in and outside Valley, Geelani said it was the collective responsibility of people to take care of their (detainees) families.
 He said, “I had told the people at the beginning of the armed struggle that the freedom struggle could prolong and so they should go forward with a well thought out strategy instead of following the dictations of their emotions. At that the youth became angry with me. Today I say it again that no time frame can be fixed for liberation and the freedom struggle can go to any length of time. We have to be determined to continue struggle till the objective is completely achieved.”
 Geelani reiterated his appeal to people for setting Bait-ul-Mal in every locality to help widows, orphans, poor and other needy especially the victims of ‘state atrocities’.
 He also appealed to the well-off people to deposit their donations with the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat to enable to extend legal and monetary help to hundreds of detainees languishing in different jails for years.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST