Kashmiris to conduct Azadi march despite curfew, curbs
Schools, shops and most banks remain shut, and normal economic activity has been paralysed.
SRINAGAR (Web Desk / AFP) – Indian troops continue to impose curfew and other restrictions in the Kashmir Valley on the 49th consecutive day, Friday, to prevent demonstrations against the ongoing killing spree by the forces.
On the other hand, Azadi march will be conducted towards Eidgah in Srinagar to register protest against the Indian brutalities in the occupied territory. Call for the Azadi march has been given by Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik. They have asked people to converge at the venue for offering Juma prayers.
Despite restrictions, thousands of people took to the streets on Thursday in Srinagar, Badgam, Bandipora, Islamabad, Pulwama and other areas and shouted pro-Pakistan, pro-freedom and anti-India slogans.
They also waved Pakistani flags. Indian forces’ personnel used brute force to disperse the protesters injuring scores of them.
The participants of a big rally led by senior APHC leader, Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi Al-Safvi, held a sit-in protest in Badgam after Indian police stopped them from moving ahead.
Hurriyet leaders including Ghulam Nabi Sumjhi, Mir Hafeezullah, Engineer Farooq Ahmed and Ghazi Manzoor Ahmad addressing a public gathering in Islamabad town and the Jamaat-e-Islami of the occupied territory in a statement in Srinagar urged India to respect the sentiments of the Kashmiri people and give them their inalienable right to self-determination.
Schools, shops and most banks remain shut, and normal economic activity has been paralysed.
Residents say the region feels more like a prison than the "paradise" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi evoked recently.
Since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government came to power in 2014, there had only been sporadic violence but tensions have never been far from the surface in India’s only Muslim-majority state.
The occupied territory is on the boil since the extra-judicial murder of the top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Burhan Wani, by Indian troops on July 8.
Atleast 84 people have been killed while over 80,00 injured so far in the firing of bullets, pallets, and teargas shells on peaceful protesters by Indian troops and police personnel.
Many of those injured have been hit in the eyes with pellets, causing partial or complete blindness.
It is being termed as the worst violence to hit the Himalayan region since 2010.
Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan along a UN-monitored line of control, but both claim it in full and have fought two wars over its control.
Freedom fighters have fought Indian security forces in Kashmir since 1989 for the independence of the region or for it to be made part of Pakistan.
The conflict has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.
