Joint Hurriyat calls for shutdown today

Srinagar, Apr 02: Joint Hurriyat Leadership on Monday said that the protest shutdown against Shopian mayhem will continue on Tuesday, April 3 as well.
In a statement, Joint Hurriyat said that “entire resistance and Hurriyat leadership will move towards Shopian on April 4 to express solidarity with the people and offer condolences to the bereaved families who lost their loved ones.”
The spokesman said that people have been asked to peacefully protest against Shopian killings at their local mosques after Zuhr Prayers.
The leadership of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that the mayhem in Shopian in which 17 people were killed in one day is another gory episode of pain agony and torment that people of Kashmir are repeatedly subject to from time to time over the past thirty years by government forces.
“Kashmir has been turned into a land of massacres and south Kashmir especially Shopian, Tral, Pulwama, Kulgam, and Islamabad into killing fields drenched in the blood of its natives mostly young boys. This is the same place where from the ruling PDP claims people voted for it and this is their response to that,” the spokesman said.
The Joint Hurriyat said that the way that bullets and pellets were showered on protesting people left four people dead on the spot while more than 50 sustained critical bullet injuries and are battling for life in hospitals.
“The scenes at the hospital are heart-wrenching as the injured writhing in pain have horrific episodes of forces brutality to narrate. Houses have been blown up and razed to the ground and even the owners have not been spared. What is equally cruel and inhuman that local resident Mushtaq Ahmed Thakur was used as a human shield by the government forces and was then killed,” the spokesman added.
Joint Hurriyat said that GOI’s military approach to deal with the Kashmir dispute which is “consuming the next generation is a matter of grave concern for all of us”.
“GOI should by now have fully realised that force will not deter people from pursuing their just cause even at the cost of their lives. It will have to engage in the dispute and give people their basic right to self-determination. The sooner it is done the better it is for the whole region,” the statement said.