The Narendra Modi-led fascist Indian government is resorting to cheap tactics to muzzle the voice of the people of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir for their UN-acknowledged right to self-determination.
According to Kashmir Media Service, in its latest nefarious move, the Modi regime has banned the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, headed by illegally detained senior Hurriyat leader, Shabbir Ahmed Shah. The DFP has been advocating the settlement of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the Kashmiris’ aspirations and relevant UN resolutions ever since its inception in 1998. The DFP leadership, particularly Chairman Shabbir Ahmed Shah, has to face India’s wrath for opposing its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. He has spent half of his life in Indian jails for championing the Kashmir cause and is presently lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.
The Modi government has already confiscated the headquarters of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Srinagar besides banning the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Jamaat-e-Islami in the occupied territory. Almost the entire leadership of these representative organizations of the Kashmiri people has been put behind the bars by the BJP-led communal Indian government.
The APHC leaders and civil society activists in their statements while strongly denouncing the ban on the DFP maintained that India’s brutal measures cannot subdue the Kashmiris’ resolve and they will continue their struggle till they achieve freedom from the Indian yoke. They urged the UN, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and European Union to stop India from banning the political parties in IIOJK striving for settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
The DFP in a statement said that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory and the Indian government has no locus standi, whatsoever, to ban an organization or declare it as unlawful association merely for seeking a peaceful resolution of the lingering dispute. APHC-AJK chapter Convener, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar, in a statement in Islamabad also strongly condemned the ban on DFP by the Modi government.
On the other hand, at least 6 Indian soldiers including three officers were injured after an Indian Army Major opened fire and lobbed grenades on them at Neeli post in Thanamandi area of Rajouri district in Jammu region. The officer opened fire on his colleagues during a shooting practice session and then took shelter in the armoury of the unit and lobbed grenades at his superiors who moved near the building to persuade him to surrender. The tense situation lasted for nearly eight hours before the Major was overpowered.—KMS
