‘No one will be allowed to turn Kashmir into another Palestine’

• Yasin Malik says state subject law is guaranteeing Kashmiris’ unique identity, right to self-determination

SRINAGAR: Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik has said that Kashmiri people will not let anyone to turn their territory into another Palestine where original inhabitants were thrown out by Israel and enslaved.

He said this while addressing a protest rally here at Lal Chowk against India’s attempts to repeal the Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution, which grants special rights and privileges to the permanent residents of the disputed state.

“State subject law is guaranteeing our unique identity and right to self-determination and defending it is the duty of every Kashmiri,” he said. The petitions seeking repeal of the Article 35-A have been listed for hearing in the Indian Supreme Court on August 27. A three-member bench of the apex court will hear the petitions.

Yasin Malik said that any tinkering with state subject law would face a stiff resistance from the Kashmiri people. “Any change in demography of Kashmir is detrimental to all Kashmiris and they will safeguard the uniqueness of the territory,” he said. He said the Kashmiris were one on the matter because its abrogation will affect their lives.

He said that the Kashmiri people were striving for their right to self-determination and state subject law is directly linked with this right. He said RSS-backed BJP and its allies want to fiddle with the state subject law enacted in 1927 and settle the Indian citizens in the occupied territory and change its demography.

Asking Kashmiri people to be ready for a full-fledged agitation if any adverse decision is delivered by Indian Supreme Court, the JKLF chairman said that the whole Kashmir will come on roads. Expressing concern over the plight of Kashmiri political detainees languishing in different jails, he said that from southern districts to northern districts and central Kashmir, a spree of arrests was going on unabated and thousands of young and old were being put behind the bars and tortured physically and mentally.

Addressing a gathering at Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq termed the notices issued to Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik by India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) as cheap tactics. He said that such moves could not intimidate the Hurriyat leadership into submission.

He said that India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested several Hurriyat leaders and fake cases and now the resistance leadership was being targeted through the Enforcement Directorate. Mirwaiz also condemned the raids on the residences of the Hurriyat leaders and activists and harassment of the family members by the Indian troops.