Complete shutdown being observed in occupied Kashmir today

ISLAMABAD: Complete shutdown is being observed across the Indian occupied Kashmir on Sunday, against India’s arbitrary measures like mass arrest, killings and attempts to repeal Article 35-A that grants special rights to the permanent residents of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Call for the strike has been given by Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik.

On Saturday, Indian police and troops had launched a massive crackdown arresting over 200 pro-freedom people including the JKLF chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, and the Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami of the territory, Dr Abdul Hameed Fayaz.

Indian police had taken Muhammad Yasin Malik into custody after raiding his Maisuma residence in Srinagar and lodged him at Kothibagh police station. Indian troops and police had arrested scores of leaders and activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami from their residences during nocturnal raids across the occupied territory.

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Complete shutdown was observed in parts of Srinagar and in Bandipora town, on Saturday against the arrest and killing spree in the territory.

Meanwhile, the Joint Resistance Leadership in a statement in Srinagar on Saturday called for a protest strike in occupied Kashmir, against India’s arbitrary measures including mass arrests, nocturnal raids, killings and attempts to repeal hereditary laws.

The Chairman All Parties Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Gilani, in a statement in Srinagar had said that the unrealistic attitude of Indian leadership had created death and destruction in the territory.

Illegally detained senior APHC leader, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, in a message from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail had said that implementation of the UN resolutions was the only democratic solution of the Kashmir dispute. A New Delhi court, deferred the hearing on the bail plea of Shabbir Shah, till April 2.

Meanwhile, Indian Ministry of Home Affairs had ordered urgent airlifting of 100 additional companies of paramilitary forces to the Kashmir Valley.