SAJJAD SHAUKAT
EVERYyear,the martyrdom ofMuhammad Afzal Guru is being celebrated on the 9th of February to pay homage to him, as India secretly hanged him and buried inside the Tihar jail complex on 09 February 2013. His martyrdom resulted into protests in Kashmir and widespread condemnations from various political and human rights organisations. Afzal Guru was convictedin 2001 Parliament attack case and awarded death sentence.Afzal had always denied plotting the attack, whichleft 14 dead,including five militants. In the past six years, during his martyrdom anniversary, a complete shutdown was observed in the India-occupied Kashmir (IoK) and protest demonstrations were held to demand the return of mortal remains of Afzal Guru. Every year, call for the strike is being given by pro-freedom leaders and organizations to mark the anniversary of Muhammad Afzal Guru. In their statements and meetings, all the leaders pay glowing tributes to the martyred Afzal Guru who sacrificed his life for the Kashmir cause. This time, this very day has come at a time when six months have passed, but Indian forces have continued lockdown and curfew in the IoK. More restrictions have been imposed in the wake of shortage of food and even medicines for the patients. In order to hide human rights violations, communication services have been cut off from the rest of the world and foreign journalists are not allowed to enter that region. Indian forces have broken all previous records of gross human rights abuses since 05 August 2019 when Indian {extremist} Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government abrogated the special status of the Jammu and Kashmir State by abolishingArticles 35-Aand 370 of the Constitution to turn Muslim majority into minority in the IoK. While, Indian fanatic rulers are also escalating tension with Pakistan to divert attention from the drastic situation of the India-occupied Kashmir, and have continued shelling inside Pakistani side of Kashmir by violating the ceasefire agreement in relation to the Line of Control (LoC). The very tragedy of the Kashmiris had started after 1947 when they were denied their genuine right of self-determination which was recognized by the UN resolutions. On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its promise of holding plebiscite in accordance with the UN Security Council’s resolutions. Instead, in March 1965, the Indian Parliament passed a bill, declaring Kashmir a province of India – an integral part of the Indian Union. Nevertheless, various forms of state terrorism have been part of a deliberate campaign by the Indian army and paramilitary forces against Muslim Kashmiris, especially since 1989. It has been manifested in brutal tactics like crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, massacres, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, disappearances, rapes, breaking the legs, molestation of Muslim women and killing of persons through fake encounters. In fact, Indian forces have employed various draconian laws like the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed AreasAct and theArmed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special PowersAct and Public SafetyAct in killing the Kashmiri people, and for the arbitrarily arrest of any individual for an indefinite period. In its report on 02 July 2015, theAmnesty International has highlighted extrajudicial killing of the innocent persons at the hands of Indian security forces in the occupied territory. Notably, in theWorld Report 2020, Human Rights Watch said on 14 January this year, “The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Indian government’s actions over the past year [2019] have caused enormous suffering and rights violations…its unilateral revocation of Kashmir’s special constitutional status and the use of draconian laws to silence criticism…The Indian government has tried to shut down Kashmir, hiding the full extent of the harm caused there,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.” Particularly, in his address at the UN General Assembly, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan on 27 September 2019 elaborated various dimensions of the plight of the Kashmiris, Kashmir lockdown, putting eight million people under curfew, Modi’s anti-Pakistan narrative and danger of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. In his third meeting with the US President Donald Trump on the sidelines ofWorld Economic Forum in Davos on January 21, 2020, Prime Minister Khan has once again expressed his desire for mediation by the US on the Kashmir issue. It is owing to the efforts of Islamabad that rights groups, leaders of the foreign countries, the UN and external media have been continuously pointing out the plight of the Kashmiris, especially in the aftermath of the military clampdown in the IoK. The parliaments of someWestern countries have also passed resolutions in this regard. EU Parliament has also prepared a draft of the resolution which is likely to be passed in March this year. Meanwhile, a new fake drama New Delhi will arrange to implicate Pakistan in order to divert the attention from its internal problems and of international community from the perennial military clampdown in the IoK. This pre-planned drama has been exposed even by Indian media on 12 January this year. But, despite it, Indian fundamentalist rulers can implement their scheme of another false flag operation like Pulwama, as Pakistan’s civil and military leaders have repeatedly warned the international community about it. Undoubtedly, since 09 February 2013, Indian forces have martyred more than 1500 innocent people who have been protesting against the martyrdom of MuhammadAfzal Guru, while the Muhammad Afzal Guru’s martyrdom has accelerated Kashmir’s struggle. —The writer is freelance columnist based in Lahore.
