Authorities offering ‘bribe, threatening our leaders’: alleges Joint Hurriyat

Srinagar, Sep 16: Joint Hurriyat Sunday alleged that authorities were using several tactics to put pressure on the leadership.

In a press statement issued to press, the leadership took serious note of the “sting operation against the leaders launched by the Army Intelligence and Special Operation Group of police”.

As per the statement, two unknown people, who, Joint Hurriyat alleged, had links with the agencies, visited the residence of Farida Behanji, chairperson of Jammu and Kashmir Mass Movement, a constituent of Hurriyat and offered Rs 2 lakh by saying, the said amount has been sent for her organization, which she refused to receive and said “I have nothing to do with this matter.”

“Later on, the duo left her residence and used a car for a ride without a number plate. The Joint Hurriyat while condemning the nefarious designs to malign the image of the resistance leadership by resorting to such illicit and immoral tactics, termed it an utter failure of the statecraft to face the resistance movement on a pure political turf,” the statement read.

The Joint Hurriyat castigated government forces’ nocturnal raid on the resistance of incarcerated Hurriyat leader, Altaf Ahmad Shah at Bemina Srinagar and intimidation of his family and residents of the locality at a time when the said leader is languishing in Tihar Jail Delhi for about last 15 months.

“The Joint Hurriyat while expressing their anguish on the fervent use of threat calls on mobile phones given to the resistance leaders and activists to ensure their presence before the SOG on the dictated time or face consequences otherwise, depicts the quantum of lawlessness and the impunity enjoyed by the men in uniform,” the statement read.

It further alleged: “The chief spokesman of Hurriyat G A Gulzar received a phone call from the Air Cargo Srinagar to appear before the SOG office by 10:00 am tomorrow. The Hurriyat spokesperson refused the same and offered his volunteer arrest. The caller said “we will look for other ways also”, by ending the call.”

The Joint Hurriyat, the statement added, said in the same way another Hurriyat leader Shabir Ahmad Dar of Sopore while refusing to appear before the police in Sopore was arrested during a nocturnal raid on his residence and detained in a police lockup.