Islamabad, January 26, 2018 (PPI-OT):A forceful protest demonstration was held outside the National Press Club (NPC), Islamabad, to mark the Indian Republic Day as Black Day and condemn continued gross human rights violations committed by Indian troops in occupied Kashmir.
The demonstration was organized by Occupied Kashmir Journalist Association (OKJA) and was attended among others by journalists, AJK Hurriyat leaders and civil society members from occupied Kashmir, Azad Kashmir and Pakistan.
The demonstrators particularly raised voice against the molestation and extra-judicial killing of an 8-year-old girl Aasifa in a village of Hindu-dominated Kathua district in Jammu region and demanded that the culprits of this heinous crime should be punished.
The demonstrators also raised voice against continued crackdown operations, house-to-house searches, harassment and continued illegal detention of Hurriyat leaders and activists by Indian forces’ personnel in the occupied territory.
They demanded immediate release of Hurriyat leaders including Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Masarrat Aalam Butt, Altaf Ahmed Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Dr Muhammad Qasim Fakhtoo, Merajuddin Kalwal, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Shahid-ul-Islam, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori, Muhammad Ramzan Khan and photojournalist, Kamran Yusuf.
The demonstrators also demanded end to the so-called military ‘Operation All Out’ under the guises of which the Indian occupation forces were conducting crackdown operations and house raids across the occupied territory to intimidate people.
The participants said that India should be ashamed of calling itself a republic state as it has snatched basic democratic rights of the people of Kashmir. They added that Kashmiris observe Indian Republic Day as Black Day to remind India as well as the world that Kashmir still is the oldest unresolved dispute on the UN agenda despite promises made by India’s forefathers to give the Kashmiris their right to self-determination. They stressed the need of implementing the United Nations resolutions to settle the lingering Kashmir dispute in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
They also condemned India for resorting to heavy shelling and firing on the Line of Control to divert attention of world community from the gross human rights violations by its forces in occupied Kashmir.
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