• APHC reiterates Black Day call for Thursday
• Yasin Malik robbed of right to question witness
Srinagar, January 24 (KMS): In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference has reiterated its call for observance of India’s Republic Day as a Black Day on Thursday as a mark of protest against the forcible occupation of Kashmiris’ motherland by New Delhi.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the APHC in a statement issued in Srinagar castigated New Delhi for unleashing a reign of terror, repression, frequent cordon and search operations and random arrests in the territory.
Senior APHC leader, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, in a message from Delhi’s infamous Tihar jail said the people of Kashmir have time and again rejected the Indian illegal occupation through peaceful means of resistance, protests and public demonstrations. Fascist India, he added, that has usurped the Kashmiris’ fundamental rights has no justification to celebrate its Republic Day in the occupied territory. The incarcerated leader appealed to the people to observe complete shutdown in Kupwara district on the martyrdom anniversary of Handwara massacre, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, curfew-like restrictions have crippled normal life in the occupied territory after Indian troops and police have intensified frisking and checking in the name of a security ahead of India’s so-called Republic Day, the 26th January. All government officers, workers, teachers and students have been asked to ensure their presence at the Republic Day functions in the territory. Snipers have been deployed at high-rise buildings, while the territory is being monitored through drones and CCTV cameras.
A special court in Jammu has stripped illegally detained Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik of his right to cross-examine the so-called prime witness in a 1990 fake case registered against him related to the killing of four Indian Air Force personnel. Yasin Malik, who is in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, demanded to cross-examine the self-styled witness, V K Sharma, while being physically present in the court. The court, however, denied him the right.
On the other hand, widespread protests were held in different areas of Islamabad, Kupwara, Rajouri, Poonch, Kishtwar and Ramban districts against the land eviction drive unleashed by the Indian authorities to bring about a demographic change in the territory. The protesters who said that the BJP regime is robbing Kashmiris of their lands and properties in the name of encroachments demanded immediate rollback of the anti-Kashmir move.