Srinagar, June 30, 2018 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, the Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik has urged the Amarnath yatris (pilgrims) and tourists to pay no heed to misreporting by the Indian news channels and feel no fear or pressure during their visit to the territory.
The resistance leaders in a joint statement in Srinagar reminded the visitors that Kashmiri hospitality was a globally acknowledged fact and the Kashmiri people will continue to retain and nourish this tradition and also keep the brotherhood and communal amity intact. They said that the Kashmiri people never compromised with their tradition of hospitality even in the toughest and trying times, but always played a friendly host to a tourist or an Amarnath yatri.
“There is no threat to Amarnath yatris from Kashmiris as reported by mischievous media outlets from their cozy studios in New Delhi. These pilgrims are very much safe in the Valley,” the leaders said. “Fake news, twisting facts and projecting a villainous image of Kashmiris has been the modus operandi of these news channels and people of Kashmir and tourists have understood their ulterior motives and nobody is paying heed to their false reporting anymore,” they added.
The resistance leaders said they want people of India to come to Kashmir and stay here and to see for themselves the ultimate form of repression unleashed by lacs of Indian troops who have been muzzling genuine rights of the Kashmiri people though military might and how the youth are pushed to the wall due to the iron-fist policy of India. “Tourists and Amarnath pilgrims can tell the actual ground reality to the rest of the people across India and also expose these sections of Indian media who have adopted a jingoistic approach vis-a-vis Kashmir just to get their TRPs high,” they added.
They leaders said that even during the toughest times, which included mass uprisings of 2008, 2010 and 2016, nobody touched pilgrims and the annual pilgrimage went on without any disturbance. “The fact remains when a tourist bus met with an accident in 2016 it was local Kashmiris who rescued the injured and accompanied them to the various hospitals,” they said.
“The people of Kashmir were on one hand being blinded by lethal pellets, killed by live bullets, and maimed and thrashed while as resistance leadership was caged and lodged in solitary confinements in 2016, but the annual pilgrimage went on smoothly and remained a peaceful affair,” the leaders said. They added that the Kashmiris played hosts without letting the pilgrims and tourists feel the pain and agony they were subjected to by the Indian forces’ personnel who had gone berserk in every nook and corner of occupied Kashmir.
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