The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leadership has denounced the ban by the Bharatiya Janata Party Indian government on Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party led by jailed senior APHC leader, Shabbir Ahmed Shah.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the APHC leaders, civil society activists and other religious and political leaders said that Shabbir Shah and other leaders were illegally detained in 2017 and after their arrests the Indian government led by fascist Modi was using cheap tactics to divert attention of the international community from its atrocities in the internationally recognized disputed territory.
The leaders made it clear that all the political leaders are on one page for the Kashmir cause. They said Narendra Modi intentionally increased hostilities and aggravated the situation in occupied Kashmir and on the Line of Control (LoC) before general elections in India and ban on political parties is the latest attempt to further muzzle the Kashmiris in IIOJK.
Banning jailed leader Shabbir Ahmad Shah’s DFP and earlier ban on Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Jammu and Kashmir, Dukhtaran-e-Millat in IIOJK is another act of brazen terrorism by BJP/RSS Hindutva government of India to subdue Kashmiris’ freedom struggle, they added.
The APHC leaders said in January this year the Modi regime had also attached the APHC office in Rajbagh, Srinagar, for spearheading the right to self-determination movement for peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute. They said the BJP government will not win the Kashmiris’ hearts by banning DFP and other Hurriyat parties in IIOJK demanding political settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
The leaders urged the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and European Union to stop India from imposing a ban on political parties in IIOJK striving for solution of the Kashmir dispute as per the World Body’s resolutions.
Other political parties and civil society activists in Srinagar said New Delhi’s decision to ban DFP is against the essence of democracy.
Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement spokesman Dr Irfan in a statement in Srinagar denouncing the ban on DFP by the Indian government said the Indian laws do not apply in occupied Jammu and Kashmir due to its disputed status. He said the DFP is a political organization committed to pursuing a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions.—KMS
