Strongly condemning the mass arrest of youth and political leaders People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said the government has converted Kashmir into a pressure cooker without a safety valve.
Addressing a party workers meeting of Srinagar district Mehbooba said the anger management exercise by the government has reached a new and more atrocious level with people being denied even the basic liberties of expression. She said “every means of expression is virtually sealed by an insecure government that has fully collaborated in the secret execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru and is now trying to raise its stock further in Delhi for being champions of enforcing a silence through undemocratic and illegitimate methods.”
The meeting called to review the situation created by the hanging of Afzal Guru was also attended by senior Kashmiri leaders Maulvi Iftikhar Hussein Ansari, Naeem Akhtar, Mohammad Ashraf Mir and Abdul Hamid Kohsheen.
Mehbooba said that “hundreds of youth have been arrested throughout the division which includes scores of teenagers as well. There are many instances in which a father has been arrested and kept as a hostage to ensure’good behaviour fromhis son”.
Mehbooba said that intolerance of the government has added to the ‘psychological scars’ created after Afzal’s hush-hush hanging as against more transparent and legally tenable course adopted in other similar cases from other states. She said that “Kashmir has gone unheard yet again and the government has used the familiar tactics of dominating the scene with overwhelming security deployment and indiscriminate arrests”.
Reiterating the party’s demand to return Afzal’s remains to his family, Mehbooba said that India should exercise ‘sane options’ to reduce the pain of the family and to console the sentiments of people at large..
Megbooba also regretted the act of Indian forces of stopping devotees from paying homage to the shrine of Hazrat Dastgeer Saheb on his Urs apart from disallowing Friday prayers.
