GOVT HAS WAGED WAR AGAINST CIVILIANS: JKLF

Srinagar, July 12: Strongly condemning the killing and arrest of youth by the police and CRPF troopers across the Valley, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front vice-chairman advocate Bashir Ahmad Bhat on Monday alleged it seemed that the government had waged an organized war against civilian population in Valley. “The police and CRPF troopers are indiscriminately arresting innocent teenagers in the length and breadth of Kashmir,” said Bhat addressing a party working committee members. “The ongoing freedom struggle in Jammu Kashmir is not a law and order problem but a matter of the freedom of a nation. Lakhs of people have till date offered the supreme sacrifices of their life for the cause of freedom of their homeland and they will continue to offer these till they achieve the complete goal of freedom. Those terming it (freedom struggle) law and order problem are vainly trying to throw dust into the eyes of world community,” Bhat Bhat strongly condemned the arrest and continued detention of Front chairman Muhammad Yaseen Malik and other pro-freedom leaders including the Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom, terming it as undemocratic measure to gag the popular voice of people. Expressing anger and anguish over the killing of innocent youth in different areas of Valley by the armed forces, Bhat said such barbarous acts and repressive tactics by the forces could not break the resolve and determination of people to continue their struggle for independent Kashmir. Paying rich tributes to the martyrs of July 13, 1931, the Front vice- chairman said these martyrs had added a golden chapter to the history of Kashmir with their sacred blood. Bhat said, “Kashmir is a political issue which can only be resolved by acknowledging Kashmiris as real masters of state and principal party to the issue and ensuing their practical participation in talks to solve it.”