Valley shuts against rights ‘violations’

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 10

Normal life was hit across Kashmir on Monday following a shutdown called by the separatists on Human Rights Day.

The joint resistance leadership of separatists comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik had called for a shutdown against the human rights violations in Kashmir.

In Srinagar, shops and business establishments remained closed and public transport too was off the roads. However, private vehicles plied normally.

Reports of shutdown were also received from other districts in the Valley. Moreover, train services between Banihal and Baramulla was also suspended by the authorities.

Additional forces were deployed in the sensitive parts of the Valley to maintain peace. However, the situation remained by and large peaceful.

Meanwhile, clashes broke out at Hajin town in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district following the burial of two teenage militants killed in a gunfight on the outskirts of the city on Sunday. Mudasir Parrey, 15, and another teenage militant Saqib Sheikh were killed in a gunfight at Mujgund along with a Pakistani militant.

Kin of missing persons protest

On International Human Rights Day, family members of disappeared persons who have gone missing in the two decades of the Kashmir conflict, gathered at Press Enclave on Monday and demanded to know the whereabouts of their kin. They said they would continue to seek justice. “Where are our children? We will not give up. We will protest till we are alive,” said Parveena Ahanger, chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons.

Set up probe panel, separatists urge UN

The joint resistance leadership (JRL), comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, has written to the United Nations, saying "Kashmir is not a frozen conflict”. In the joint letter to the UN Secretary General on the occasion of World Human Rights Day, the trio has highlighted the “grave human rights situation” in the Valley, urging him to “establish a UN commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive and independent international investigation into human rights violations in Kashmir”. Acknowledging the UN report on the human rights situation in Kashmir, the JRL has written that they were not allowed to “peacefully observe December 3 to 9 as Human Rights Week”. “The repressive and authoritarian state even disallowed us to observe Human Rights Week by using force and arrested those participating in candlelight protests,” reads the letter, urging the UN to impress upon New Delhi “to stop gross human rights violation forthwith”. Meanwhile, urging New Delhi to allow international human rights organisations to visit violence-hit J&K, Awami Ittehad Party leader and former legislator Engineer Rasheed on Monday claimed that security forces were not making sincere efforts to capture militants alive during gunfights.