The Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik Thursday called for a complete shutdown on February 3 “as a mark of protest” against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir.
In a statement, the JRL urged people to “halt” all their activities, transport and businesses on the day
and “give a message to the whole world that Kashmiris, despite all tyranny and oppression by New Delhi, will not stop their peaceful struggle for right to self-determination and rather will continue this struggle at every cost”.
“Five years of Narendra Modi rule are marred with tyranny and oppression in Kashmir. During these years, blood of innocent Kashmiris has been spilled ruthlessly, eyesight of young and old has been snatched by pellets, our residential houses have been blasted and set on fire violently, thousands of our young and old have been put into jails and thus lives of Kashmiris have been turned into hell,” the statement read.
“The Modi government came out with policies like construction of Israeli-type settlements for Kashmiri Pandits, separate colonies for former army personnel and providing a permanent resident-ship to West Pakistan refugees living in Jammu,” the JRL said, adding that when the people of Kashmir “resisted these anti-Kashmir moves in an exemplary manner, the Modi government started a spree of killings, maiming, destruction of residential houses, snatching eyesight of young and old by pellets, implementing tax regimes like GST to further damage Kashmiri economy and business, stopping foreign aid at the time of floods in 2014 to harm Kashmiris, stopping tourists from coming to Kashmir to damage the tourism sector, using agencies like NIA and ED to put people in jails, putting thousands of innocent Kashmiris in jails under PSA and shifting many of them to jails outside J&K and other kinds of oppressive acts which are still going on unabated”.
The JRL said during his last visit to J&K, “Modi ji was appealed by Kashmiri tourist operators to appeal tourists to come to Kashmir but instead he asked Kashmiris to opt between tourism and militancy and thus gave a clear message to tourists to not come to Kashmir”.
“This time Modi is coming to Jammu and Kashmir with a proposal of handing over 850-MV Rattle power project to the national hydroelectric power cooperation (NHPC). This is a systematic plan to continue loot of our resources and completely undermine our economy and make us beggars before New Delhi for using our own resources,” the JRL alleged, adding: “Our resources are being utilised to illuminate states of India as we, the people of Kashmir, despite paying heavy bills are being deprived of electricity in extreme cold season and further more threatened with privatising electricity by installing pre-paid meters and so on”.
“People of Jammu and Kashmir will never allow this loot under the garb of NHPC anymore and will resist it forcefully,” the statement read.