Srinagar
In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, complete shutdown will be observed, tomorrow, to mark the 37th martyrdom anniversary of prominent Kashmiri liberation leader, Muhammad Maqbool Butt.
Call for the strike has been given by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and other pro-freedom leaders and organizations. India had hanged Muhammad Maqbool Butt in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on 11th February 1984 for his leading role in the Kashmiris’ ongoing freedom movement and buried him in the premises of the prison.
Other pro-freedom leaders and organizations including Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori, Shabbir Ahmad Dar, Abdul Ahad Parra, Jammu and Kashmir National Front, Kashmir Tehreek-e-Khawateen and Jammu and Kashmir Employees Movement in their statements said that the Kashmiri people are proud of Muhammad Maqbool Butt who kissed the gallows but refused to compromise on his ideals. They said his hanging amounted to a judicial murder.
The leaders said that Maqbool Butt and other martyrs are real assets of the Kashmiri people. The posters carrying pictures of Syed Ali Gilani, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Aasiya Andrabi, Masarrat Aalam Butt, Dr Abdul Hameed Fayaz and martyred leaders Muhammad Maqbool Butt and Muhammad Afzal Guru appeared in Srinagar and other parts of the territory. The posters urged the United Nations to resolve the Kashmir dispute. People were also asked through these posters to hold prayer meetings for the Kashmiri martyrs.
Senior Hurriyat leader Professor Abdul Ghani Butt talking to people in South Kashmir said the Kashmir dispute has reached a critical level where the international community should step in to find out a permanent solution to the dispute. He asked India to shun its hegemonic approach and initiate a serious dialogue process with Pakistan and the real representatives of Jammu and Kashmir to resolve the decades-old issue.
Speakers at a seminar organized by the APHC-AJK chapter in Islamabad, today, said that India in violation of all moral and constitutional boundaries hanged Muhammad Maqbool Butt in Tihar jail. They expressed the fear that India wants to eliminate jailed Hurriyat leaders and activists and Kashmiri leaders like Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru by implicating them in baseless cases.—KMS
