Pro-Kashmiri demos continue

Traders in Muzaffarabad close shops and throng the streets to protest India’s violence against the people of Kashmir.

MUZAFFARABAD: Demonstrations protesting the security forces’ aggression in Indian Kashmir continued on Saturday across Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The traders in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, closed their shops and thronged the streets to protest India’s violence against the people of Kashmir, shouting, “Go back India, go back, we want freedom.”

Businesses and markets remained closed in response to a call given by trade leaders to express their solidarity with the struggling people of Indian Kashmir.

Traders paraded through the busy bank roads carrying banners and placards shouting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans. They later gathered in front of the press club where they made speeches appreciating the courage and resilience of the people of Indian Kashmir and condemned India for repressing the people there. They demanded that the world’s community take urgent notice of the situation and take steps to end the suffering of Indian Kashmir at hands of the occupying forces.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the traders of Indian Kashmir told the officials of the Cross Line of Control Trade and Travel Authority (Tata) that they were not in a position to trade.

Tata has suspended weekly trade between the two Kashmirs for two weeks. “We have been told by Tata that there will be no truck service on Tuesday and Wednesday during the next few weeks as has been communicated by Indian Kashmir’s traders and officials” said a trader Ejaz Ahmed Mir.

He said that traders on both sides of the Line of Control were facing hardships as each trader has goods worth several millions blocked on either side following the tension in Kashmir.

“Our cargo is blocked on the other side of LoC and we are afraid as there were only a few weeks in the last three months when there was truck service between the Indian Kashmir and Azad Kashmir,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.