Hundreds of Kashmiris arrested during ongoing crackdown in IIOJK

Srinagar: Indian police in its massive crackdown have arrested hundreds of innocent Kashmiris across illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir in the last few days.

According to Kashmir Media Service, the massive arrests during house raids are aimed at creating a sense of fear among the Kashmiri people and force them to give up their affiliation with the ongoing freedom movement. The police have intensified the crackdown in the territory since R.R. Swain took over as the Director General of the force on Tuesday. He is known to be an RSS affiliate and has been assigned the task of forcefully imposing the Hindutva agenda of the extremist Hindu organization. Those arrested during so-called search operations and house raids include Hurriyat leaders and activists as well as children, minors, youth, women and elderly. These people have been dubbed as mujahideen or over-ground workers of the mujahideen and mujahid organizations fighting for the achievement of the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination acknowledged by the UN through its several resolutions.

The occupation authorities locked the historic Jamia Masjid, Srinagar, on the 4th consecutive Friday, today, disallowing people to offer Juma prayers. They feared that the Juma congregation at the grand mosque could turn into an anti-India and anti-Israel demonstration. The authorities also placed senior leaders of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Maulana Masroor Abbas Ansari, and and noted religious scholar Agha Syed Mohammed Hadi, under house arrest.

The APHC in a statement in Srinagar expressed serious concern over the ongoing arrest spree across the occupied territory. It maintained that the Indian brutalities cannot suppress the Kashmiris’ resolve for freedom and they will continue their struggle till it reaches its logical conclusion. The APHC appealed to the international community to take cognizance of the Indian state terrorism in the occupied territory.

On the other hand, APHC leaders including Molvi Bashir Irfani, Yasmeen Raja, Mir Shahid Saleem, Chaudhry Shaheen Iqbal, Hakeem Abdul Rasheed, Advocate Muzamil, Shabbir Ahmed and Ghulam Nabi War in their statements issued in Srinagar paid rich tributes to the Jammu martyrs. They said the Kashmiri people will accomplish the mission of their martyrs at all costs. Hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris were massacred by the forces of Maharaja Hari Singh, Indian Dogra army and Hindu extremists in different parts of Jammu region while they were migrating to Pakistan during the first week of November in 1947.

National Conference leader, Rattan Lal Gupta, in a statement in Srinagar said that the Narendra Modi-led fascist Indian government had plunged occupied Jammu and Kashmir into unprecedented political uncertainty. He criticized the Modi regime for its failure to ensure the safety of the Kashmiri people.