Geelani, Mirwaiz, Malik, others hail people for shutdown

Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Geelani, said in a statement said that today’s strike was a referendum in support of Kashmir’s freedom and a clear message to India that Kashmiris don’t believe in their ‘so-called democracy.’
“Today people of Kashmir once again showed the world that they do not see their future with India,” Geelani said.
Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, while commending the people for observing a complete strike to register protest against Modi’s visit and his government’s Kashmir policy, said, “The brave Kashmiris have once again given a clear message to the Indian leadership and the international community that the tremendous sacrifices offered and the innumerable hardships faced by them for the past more than 65 years are for the cause of achieving the basic right, the right to determine their political future.”
Mirwaiz, in a statement today, regretted that the Indian leadership continues to turn a blind eye towards the real issue. “Instead of addressing the root cause, they keep hacking at the leaves by talking of development, governance and economic well-being, as if that will alter anything. Had it been so, for the past sixty years many economic packages and developmental plans have time and again been announced, but that have not in any way changed the fundamental nature of the problem nor have they helped in coming near to a resolution of the issue,” he said.
The incarcerated chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Muhammad Yasin Malik said today’s protest strike observed by Kashmiris should serve as an eye-opener for all including Modi that Kashmiris stood for freedom and not for ‘so-called’ elections.
“The historic strike in whole Kashmir is befitting reply to India, its Prime Minister Narendra Modi and those who claim that people of Kashmir do not want Azadi. It serves a clear message to all that Kashmiris want freedom and no power on earth can defeat their peaceful freedom movement. Kashmiris cannot be budged by the manipulated elections that have no authority or value,” a spokesman of the Front, in a statement today, quoted Yasin Malik as having said in his message from Islamabad (Anantnag) jail.
“Bringing people from Delhi, Punjab, Jammu and other areas and assembling them in Srinagar with Kashmiri Pheran cannot change the reality of Kashmir dispute. Nor can wearing a Pheran befool the people who have offered the supreme sacrifice of over one lakh nears and dears,” he said.
The Bar Association, reiterating its demand for a plebiscite in J&K, said elections held in the past and being held now, ‘under the shadow of guns and in presence of about a million armed forces’ will not solve the Kashmir tangle or bring peace in the sub-continent.
Hailing the people, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat chairperson Syedah Aasiyah Andrabi, in a statement today, called Modi’s rally as an eye opener for whole India that “Kashmiris are never ready to accept its control over Kashmir.”
“If Geelani Sahib by chance comes on the road, thousands gather around him. He does not offer promises of jobs and roads but call for anti-occupation movement,” she said.
Hailing the people for observing complete shutdown, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (H) chairman Javaid Ahmad Mir, in a statement today, said, “Narendra Modi and other leaders of India must realize the fact that even their stooges in the disputed Kashmir are not able to get votes in so-called elections unless they covertly or overtly praise and eulogize the martyrs and pro-freedom leaders of Kashmir. They know it fully well that it is only the reality of right to self- determination that can draw the people of Kashmir towards them. This fact has become manifestly clear when one comes across the banners and pamphlets of pro-Indian regional parties. India should realize that not taking into cognizance the writing on the walls of Kashmir will make it pay through its nose. Indian political parties must recall that from the very inception of Kashmir dispute, their leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Atal Bihari Vajpayi, in one way or the other accepted the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.”