In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other Hurriyat leaders and organizations have strongly denounced the sentencing of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik, to life imprisonment by an Indian court.
A court of India’s notorious National Investigation Agency in New Delhi on Wednesday sentenced illegally detained Chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, to life imprisonment after an unfair trial in concocted cases registered against him over three decades ago.
Senior APHC leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a statement issued in Srinagar said Yasin Malik has been pursuing peaceful and democratic means of conflict resolution since 1994. A strong votary of dialogue and negotiations between the concerned parties to the Kashmir dispute i.e. people of Kashmir, India and Pakistan, he has been relentlessly and selflessly seeking its resolution, he added.
The Mirwaiz said the complete protest strike being observed by people despite state coercion and pressure not to allow it, shows people’s commitment to resistance leadership in jails and under house detention. He urged the Indian government to release all Kashmiri political prisoners and resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute peacefully through deliberations among the parties to the dispute keeping in view the will of the people of Kashmir as imprisonment and incarceration cannot change that reality.
Senior APHC leader, Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi Al-Safvi, in a statement in Srinagar, condemning the Indian court’s verdict against Yasin Malik, said the unfair trial will only ignite instability in the territory. He said the Indian government should take cognizance of this fact and release Yasin Malik and commence a political engagement.
APHC leaders Syed Bashir Andrabi and Khawaja Firdous in a joint statement in Srinagar termed the sentencing of Yasin Malik as a murder of justice. They said that Yasin Malik’s punishment was a manifestation of the Modi regime’s oppressive aggressive thinking on which the Kashmiri people were protesting. They added that with the punishment of Yasin Malik, the freedom movement would not be suppressed but a new enthusiasm would be infused in it.
Jammu and Kashmir Muslim League and Jammu and Kashmir Peoples League in their separate statements in Srinagar said sentencing of Yasin Malik to life imprisonment by an Indian court is travesty of justice. They appealed to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Amnesty International to play a role in providing justice to the oppressed Kashmiris by taking steps against the sentencing of Yasin Malik in baseless and fictitious cases.
APHC leaders, Zamruda Habib, Yasmeen Raja and Dr Musaib, in their separate statements in Srinagar denounced the Indian court verdict and described it murder of justice.
APHC leaders Khadim Hussain and Syed Sibte Shabbir Qummi in their joint statement in Srinagar strongly denouncing the sentencing of Yasin Malik to life imprisonment called it a one-sided and unjust decision. They said that the decision once again proved that Indian courts are not independent in their decisions. They deplored that India had earlier put Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru on the gallows while veteran Hurriyat leaders, Syed Ali Gilani and Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, were kept in illegal detention and pushed to death.
The APHC-AJK chapter, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, in a statement in Islamabad strongly denounced the Indian court’s judgment. He urged Pakistan to approach the United Nations, UN Human Rights Council and other institutions concerned for revocation and repeal of the life sentence against Muhammad Yasin Malik and release of JKLF chief and other Kashmiri detainees from jails.
APHC-AJK leader, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar in his statement in Islamabad, denouncing the unjust sentencing of JKLF Chairman, termed it as a murder of justice. He said the shameful verdict serves as an eye-opener for the civilized world that has maintained criminal silence over the Indian government’s unabated judicial onslaught against the Kashmiri leaders. Lauding the JKLF chief’s peerless sacrifices and contribution towards the ongoing freedom struggle, he said, Malik has fearlessly advocated the cause of Kashmir. India, he said, cannot silence Kashmiris’ by resorting to such mean tactics.
APHC-AJK chapter leader Altaf Hussain Wani in his statement termed the unjust court ruling as a blatant violation of the international law and basic norms of justice. He said that Malik’s unilateral trial and sentence was yet another attempt to satisfy the dead conscience of the Indian society and racist regime that derives pleasure by inflicting pain and penalizing Kashmiris.—KMS
