Our Correspondent
Muzaffarabad
Participants of the ‘people’s freedom march’ under the aegis of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front have reached near Jiskool, a spot where the administration and police have blocked Muzaffarabad-Srinagar highway by placing containers, barbed wires, electricity poles and mounds of earth, witnesses said.
“Hum le ke rahengay azadi (We will get freedom by all means),” they were heard chanting constantly, while waving flags of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and their party.
Muhammad Rafiq Dar, central spokesperson for the JKLF, said the march was a peaceful programme aimed at expressing solidarity with the besieged Kashmiris and drawing the attention of the international community towards the urgent need of an immediate and peaceful settlement to the long pending [Kashmir] issue. He said that his group did not want to engage in any kind of confrontation with the local law enforcement personnel.
“We are not for any kind of confrontation or violence because that will serve the Indian purpose,” he told media. Dar urged the AJK administration to remove the containers so that the marchers could reach Chakothi, a village which is 3 kilometres before the Line of Control but is overlooked by Indian gun positions atop lofty mountains across the divide.
