The joint resistance leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik on Thursday said that the army chief general Bipin Rawat’s remarks on Kashmir indicate admission of the fact that Kashmir is under “forcible control” of New Delhi.
The leadership also stated that Kashmir movement was “love and worship for us” and no matter how far New Delhi can go in “building pressure on the resistance camp”, there is “no question of surrender.”
The army chief yesterday stated that people of Kashmir have realised that they can’t achieve what they want. He had also asserted that to seek independence from a nation where “we have a strong armed forces, and very strong government, you (Kashmiris) cannot secede from India.”
The JRL addressed a joint press conference at the Nigeen residence of Mirwaiz. Geelani, however, address media over phone as he continues to remain under house detention for the past eight years, at his Hyderpora residence.
“We have no grudge against India as a country and neither its people. We always wish them good,” Geelani said. “We want to tell the army chief that Kashmir struggle is purely indigenous and it has nothing to do with terrorism. Those leading the armed struggle in Kashmir have their own way and approach.”
Geelani said that the real fight of people of Kashmir was against the “Delhi’s forcible rule through its military deployment in Kashmir.”
“We want to remind the army chief that we are demanding our right which has been promised by none other than the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawhar Lal Nehru,” he said.
The Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman said that Kashmiri people and the resistance leadership were not carrying “guns or bombs” in their hands as their struggle was purely indigenous in nature.
“So linking our peaceful struggle with terrorism is nothing but a ploy to justify bloodshed and massacre of people of Kashmir, including that of the pro-freedom leadership,” Geelani said.
He said that accession signed by then Maharaja Hari Singh was conditional and temporary as it “has no acceptance (or permission) by the people of Kashmir.” “And in 1947, Kashmir issue was taken to the United Nations where Kashmiris were promised right to self-determination. We are demanding the same right,” the ailing resistance leader said.
“But New Delhi wants to crush our genuine struggle through its military might as stated by the army chief,” he said.
On the chargesheet filed by the NIA against 10 Kashmiris including a businessman, Geelani said that all the charges and witnesses are “false and fake.” “None of those lodged in Tihar and arrested by the NIA has any criminal record. They have nothing to do with funding case. We demand their unconditional release,” he said.
Geelani also said that a complete strike will be observed on January 26 across Kashmir and it “should act as an eye-opener for New Delhi that Kashmiris are against its military rule.”
“The army chief’s statement is actually a confession of what people of Kashmir want and how military force will be used to prevent them from doing so. This is an open admission of forcible control,” Mirwaiz said at the presser.
He said that it is clear that New Delhi wants to deal with Kashmir issue militarily. “Genuine struggles across the globe are witness that they couldn’t be crushed with military might,” he said.
He said that the effort to align the Kashmiri struggle for right to self-determination with terrorism is a “propaganda to distort the facts and mislead people of India and aboard.”
“Kashmir is an internationally-acknowledged dispute. It is a humanitarian problem, a tragedy where a temporary line is dividing families and friends,” he said. “There are resolutions pending regarding our future to be decided through right to self-determination—the resolutions in the United Nations that both India and Pakistan have ratified and all countries of the world have acknowledged.”
He said that it was Nehru who proposed referendum as a solution to the Kashmir issue.
Mirwaiz, who heads the Hurriyat Conference (M), said: “Bullying us into submission through force, by stationing lakhs of forces who have been given a legal license to kill and persecute us through laws like AFSPA, arresting and torturing at will and slapping draconian laws like PSA on those who politically resist repression, choking all space and barring the resistance leadership from even holding meetings, are all acts of the state.”
In an apparent reference to army chief, Mirwaiz said that it seems Kashmir has been handed over to military by New Delhi to take a call on how to handle it. “That’s why the army chief makes frequent comments about not just military issues but ‘diktats’ on how masjids and religious institutions should function and how the educational institutions will be controlled and run,” he said.
Mirwaiz also said that the chargesheet filed by the NIA against Kashmiri resistance leadership has been kept open which indicates that more and more people would be included in the list in future to “mount pressure on the resistance leadership.”
He said that the NIA is trying to give an impression after their raids and arrests that Kashmir is “silent and peaceful.”
“What is silent in Kashmir? Killings continue, human rights violations continue, cordon and search operations continue, blinding of youth with pellets continue. Nothing is silent here,” he said.
In his remarks, the chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Muhammad Yasin Malik said that the army chief has stated that what Kashmiris desire was not possible, “but I want to tell him that Mahatma Gandhi, who was fighting against the British rule, was once approached by a British officer and told how can India survive as it has neither economy not any resources, and Gandhi’s reply was that it is better to have the poor government of own people rather than foreigners.”
Malik said that the Kashmir struggle was “love and worship” for him and no matter how repressive measures New Delhi would use to force them into submission, there was “no question of surrender.”
He said that in India’s history, there is only one mass massacre known as Jalianwala Bagh committed by the then British army officer general Dyer.
“But in Kashmir history, there are dozens of similar incidents. Every lane has a martyrs’ graveyard here,” he said.
The JKLF chief said that it is a deliberate ploy to “link Kashmir’s indigenous struggle with terrorism” to justify killing of Kashmiris.
In an apparent reference to army chief, Malik said that in 2016 uprising, young militant commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter at Kokernag, Anantnag.
“I want to ask general Rawat, who killed Wani? Did Pakistan kill him?” he questioned.
“Forces who killed Wani were rewarded. After Wani’s killing, people hit the roads and a sea of people participated in his funeral.”
Malik said that those who participated in the funeral of Wani were showered with bullets and then “we saw killing of 15 people every day which prompted Geelani, Mirwaiz and myself to frame protest calendars.”
“If running agitation in 2016 is the basis for NIA chargesheet, then FIR should have been against three of us, why others were dragged into it? Most of those booked were behind the bars in 2016,” he said.
The JKLF chief said that those booked by the NIA have actually been “kidnapped” as there was “no concrete evidence against them.”
Malik also took a dig at the chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, stating that she would weep over the bodies of “our mujahid (militant) brethren” by visiting their homes. “In the assembly, she blows the trumpet of dialogue stating that we are shying away from talks. In the same breath, she states that accession of 1947 was a historic decision taken by Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah and a right step,” he said. Malik also announced that since all democratic values stand trampled in Kashmir, January 26 will be observed as “black day” across Kashmir.