Geelani calls strike, asks children, employees to boycott Jan 26 function
While appealing for shutdown on January 26, All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani Thursday strongly condemned the government’s decision to make participation in India’s Republic Day function for employees mandatory. He also asked parents to keep children away from such function.
In a statement from New Delhi, he said, “India is claiming to be a big democratic country in the world and celebrates January 26 as its Republic Day, but its democratic claims are being badly exposed in Jammu and Kashmir.”
He said New Delhi is ‘denying the democratic right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir from last 68 years’. “Kashmiris are nether the enemies of India or its people and nor are they opposed to their Republic Day celebrations within the limitations of Indian Territory, but as far as the Kashmir is concerned, it is an occupied territory held military might, therefore India has no constitutional and moral justifications to celebrate these functions in Jammu and Kashmir,” the octogenarian leader said.
“The UN Charter supports the right to self determination of every nation of the world and this right has been accepted as the basic and birth right of every human being. This world body has recommended that the wishes and aspirations of the people of Jammu & Kashmir should be respected and India has promised at national as well as international levels that they will held a referendum in this state but those promises are yet to be fulfilled and the people of this state are being denied their democratic right,” he said.
Geelani added that it was the only reason for their opposition to hold this function of 26 January in Jammu and Kashmir and “we treat it as a big joke.”
While appealing for complete boycott of January 26 function, the APHC chief the government order as “sheer hooliganism and coercion.”
“Participation of employees is in no way any part of their duty and forcing them for this is itself a proof of the fact that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is ruled by the police and army,” Geelani said and appealed the school children, teachers and parents not to be any part of the 26 January function.
He also expressed his concern over the reports that some school girls were being prepared for the singing and dancing programs for this day. “It doesn’t suit to a conscious person to allow his daughter for performing dance and singing in front of the unknown persons. It is also against our collective conscious,” he added.
