Srinagar, February 28, 2019 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, the Chairman of Hurriyat forum, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has urged India and Pakistan to de-escalate tension and not resort to war as escalation and war can never resolve the issues. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement issued in Srinagar said that the present dispensation at New Delhi was using Kashmir as a whipping boy for electoral gains as general elections in India are round the corner.
He said there is a threatening and grave atmosphere created by India across Kashmir and people are being psychologically intimidated. Only talking to each other is the way forward, he added. He said that keeping in view this wave of repression and intimidation coercive raids were conducted at the residences of resistance leadership including Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai and Naseem Gilani by the infamous National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday.
He said, “The NIA team also raided my house from 8:00am to 6:00pm. A cordon was laid around my house by a large number of paramilitary forces.” He said around 15 to 20 people from the NIA, accompanied by two local policemen, entered his house and office and thoroughly searched it.
He said “The houses of my relatives who live around me were also searched. After these thorough coercive searches, certain items were confiscated by the NIA team including my laptop and phones, hard drives from my office computers, press releases of Hurriyat and Anjuman Auqaf Jamia Masjid letterheads and records of Kashmiri students studying in Pakistani medical colleges recommended by Hurriyat forum.”
He said the threats of removing Articles 370 and 35 A which grant special status to Jammu and Kashmir are kept hanging over our heads like a Damocles sword to be used as and when the electoral situation for them demands”.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai in a statement in Srinagar urged India and Pakistan to shun war as history is a witness that nations even after fighting costly wars, have still to sit on a negotiating table for a solution. He said that Kashmiris were always against war and destruction. “We are only asking for resolution of the dispute by peaceful and political means for which comprehensive and serious dialogue is the only way forward,” he added.
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