Life crippled in Occupied Kashmir by complete shutdown against polls drama
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SRINAGAR - In occupied Kashmir, the normal life was paralysed by complete shutdown, today, against the drama being enacted in the name of parliamentary elections in the territory and brutal measures against the Kashmiri people and their leadership.
Call for the strike was given by the Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik. The shutdown was also aimed at registering protest against the victimization of Hurriyat leaders and their family members by India’s infamous National Investigation Agency and the closure of Kashmir’s main highway. All shops, business establishments and educational institutions were closed while attendance in government and private offices was very thin. Transport was also off the road. The JRL has also called for shutdown in the areas during the next phases of the polls.
The authorities had deployed over 32,000 additional Indian troops and police personnel for the first phase of Indian elections in Baramulla constituency, today, vindicating the Hurriyat stance that the parliamentary elections in the territory were nothing but a military exercise.
The authorities shifted over two dozen Kashmiri political prisoners including Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami, Dr Abdul Hameed Fayyaz, and Jamiat Ahle Hadith Vice President, Mushtaq Ahmed Veeri, from Jammu’s Kathua jail to the Indian state of Haryana. The authorities booked four persons including Tehreek-e-Hurriyat District Kulgam President, Muhammad Ramzan Sheikh, under black law, Public Safety Act.
Hurriyat leaders and organizations including Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai and Abdul Hameed Butt in their separate statements strongly denounced the shifting of illegally detained Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Muhammad Yasin Malik, from Jammu to New Delhi. Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai urged India to resolve the Kashmir dispute instead of harassing and detaining Hurriyat leaders.