The Joint Resistance Leadership of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik on Monday cautioned the state government against pushing the Kashmir youth to the wall and called the prevailing situation as “worrisome”.
The trio last evening held a two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting, their first in the past three months. What transpired during the closed-door meeting at Geelani’s residence couldn’t be known immediately, but a statement issued by the JRL today delved on “harassment of the youth, ill-treatment meted out to political prisoners, and iron-fisted policies of the state and central governments as a substitute to political process for resolution of Kashmir issue”.
“Innocent people are detained on frivolous charges in different jails while as youth are being pushed to the wall… such undemocratic and inhuman situation can’t be tolerated for long,” the statement said.
The meeting was held two days after newly-elected Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chairman Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai’s son Junaid Ashraf joined militancy. This is for the first time in Kashmir’s three decade-old militancy that any top separatist leader’s child has picked up gun.
“Military might or iron-fisted policies can never solve Kashmir problem. Rather, it will cause more destruction of life and property,” said the statement issued by the trio.
“The complete silence adopted by world community (on Kashmir issue) is lending a helping hand to the government of India and its stooges to commit more human rights violations in Kashmir…. To secure the future of billions of people of South Asia, there is high need to take concrete steps to resolve the vexed Kashmir issue,” the statement reads.