Masarrat Aalam Butt calls for shutdown in Srinagar on Gawkadal massacre day

In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, illegally detained Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Masarrat Aalam Butt has paid rich tributes to the martyrs of Gawkadal, Srinagar, and appealed to the freedom-loving Kashmiri people to observe complete shutdown on 21st of January in Srinagar district.

Indian troops had indiscriminately opened fire in Gaw Kadal killing around 60 Kashmiris and injuring scores on January 21, 1990.

The incarcerated Chairman in a message from New Delhi’s Tihar jail released in Srinagar appealed to the people to organise congregational prayer meetings on the auspicious occasion of Friday prayers and register peaceful protests against the genocide of the innocent people, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, custodial disappearances, change of demography and imposition of Hindutva ideology by Indian occupation forces in the territory.

The APHC leader also denounced the onslaught on the freedom of press and journalism by the Indian fascist regime and said that the electronic and the print media in Kashmir was already reeling under the worst censorship especially for the popular voice of the people for their legitimate demand and inalienable right to self determination.

Expressing his extreme concern over the forcible closure of the Press Club of Kashmir by the Indian occupation regime, the APHC Chairman ridiculed the draconian move and said that India is virtually emerging as the worst dictatorial country against its so-called claim of being the largest democracy in the world.

He urged the United Nations to take serious measures to implement the its Security Council resolutions on the Kashmir dispute and stop genocide, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and the human rights abuses by Indian troops in the nook and corner of the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.