In 100 days, India’s facade crumbled: Geelani

The Hurriyat leader threatened to continue the agitation as the shut-down called by the separatists completed 106 days.

Abida Malik, sister of jailed JKLF chief Yasin Malik, in anguish after police fired teargas shells at protesters in Srinagar while they were demanding his release. Photo: Nissar Ahmad

Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, who was not allowed to make an address here on Saturday, said 100 days of civilian unrest in the Kashmir Valley divested India of “every façade” as “words like democracy, development and rule of law were crushed under the boots of its own million soldiers.”

In an address, which was circulated online after the police sealed entries to his Srinagar residence in the morning, Mr. Geelani, 86, threatened to continue the agitation as the shut-down called by the separatists completed 106 days.

“It is only the soldiers with their guns that stand between us and our freedom. The Indian stooges in Kashmir — the National Conference (NC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference and the Congress — have unleashed a vicious propaganda. They had to mobilise their entire nation to create war hysteria in a bid to distract attention from the struggle in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Mr. Geelani, whose two sons were also denied access to him.

Describing the 100 days as “unforgettable education for children,” he said: “Holding examinations would be another form of collective punishment, like ransacking of homes, destruction of transformers, orchards and standing crops, and custodial torture of detainees.” He said the street protests helped to “thwart sinister plans to effect demographic changes through new Sainik colonies, Israeli-type settlements or creation of zones of exception under the garb of religious mythologies.”

He said the unrest “brought Kashmir back on the world stage.” “India will not give us anything. India wants to raze to the ground our desire for a life of dignity and freedom. Our fight for freedom is the fight to liberate our minds from the Indian control and we are successfully doing it. The liberation of our territory is inevitable,” he said.

Cavalcade stoned

The cavalcade of Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan, who was returning to Srinagar from Bandipora after an official meeting, was stoned at Saderkoot Bala. Security forces fired tear-gas shells to control the situation.

The police said a tempo was attacked with a petrol bomb at Eidgah in Srinagar on Friday, the seventh vehicle set ablaze by unidentified men. Locals at Bogum in Kulgam district said the building of the Government Higher Secondary School was damaged in a fire on Friday night.