Jammu Martyrs’ Day: Kashmiris flay India for atrocities

Events, seminars and rallies held across the valley to pay tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for freedom

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday observed martyrs’ day, paying tributes to the thousands of people who were killed by forces allied to the Dogra rule shortly after the Partition in 1947.

In this regard, events were held across the valley with speakers vowing to continue their struggle for the final settlement of the disputed Himalayan territory as per the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

While addressing the seminar on separatist leader Burhan Wani who was killed by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir  in July, speakers said that the Kashmiri struggle had started in earnest on July 13, 1931 when the Dogra regime killed 21 Kashmiris one after the other outside the Srinagar Central Jail, where they had gathered to hear about the trial of freedom fighter Abdul Qadeer.

The brutalities against Kashmiris continued when the same Dogra soldiers and Hindu extremists gunned down over 500,000 Kashmiris when they were on the way to Pakistan from Jammu sector on November 6, 1947. Speakers recalled that India in 1989 started another phase of state terrorism in the disputed region and it continues to consuming the lives of the innocent till date.

“More than 100,000 people who were demanding their right of self-determination have been killed by Indian forces since 1989 in the Valley. Kashmir’s real heroes were these martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the greater cause of Kashmir,” said Muslim League Leader Ishtiaq Hameed.

Noted scholar and Kashmiri leader Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, referring to the hundreds of youngsters who have been blinded by the pellet guns used by Indian forces in IoK, said that a nation whose young girls and boys have been sacrificing their eyesight for their basic rights would never be defeated.

Meanwhile, a rally was taken out from District Complex to the Press Club to pay glowing tributes to martyrs. Participants of the rally raised anti-India and pro-freedom slogans.

Seminars on the subject were also conducted in Mirpur , Kotli and Bagh.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2016.