Imran Khan pledges Pakistan’s continued support for Kashmir freedom struggle

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan paid tributes to Kashmiris for their continued struggle against the Indian oppression in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Today, on Yaum-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir, we salute Kashmiris for their continued struggle against the illegal & barbaric Indian occupation of Jammu & Kashmir. The Shuhada of 13 July 1931 were the forefathers of today’s Kashmiri resistance,” PM Khan said in a statement on Monday.

“Their descendants have, generation after generation, laid down their lives for freedom and today they continue to valiantly fight & defy a Hindutva Supremacist regime bent on demographic engineering to wipe out the Kashmiri people & their identity.”

Khan said Pakistan has always stood steadfast for the Kashmiri right to self-determination and will continue to support this just struggle till IOJK is liberated from the clutches of Indian illegal occupation. That day is not far.

Shutdown in Kashmir

In occupied Kashmir, a complete shutdown is being observed to mark the Kashmir Martyrs’ Day, the 13th July.

Call for the strike has been given by the veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Gilani, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat forum to reiterate the urgent need for a peaceful and just resolution of the Kashmir dispute and to put an end to repression against the Kashmiri people and Hurriyat leaders.

Syed Ali Gilani in a tweet maintained that the people of occupied Kashmir have not submitted to the Indian oppression for the last several decades and they would continue their battle against this brutal occupation till the dawn of freedom. In another tweet, he urged people to observe shutdown on 13th July.

The APHC has appealed to the people to conduct a march towards the Mazar-e-Shuhada, Naqshband Sahib in Srinagar on the day where the martyrs of 1931 are buried.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat forum has said that 13th July 1931 is a milestone in the history of Jammu and Kashmir as on the day Kashmiris for the first time collectively stood up to resist oppressive autocratic rule and gave expression to their aspirations.

It was on the 13th of July 1931 when the troops of Dogra Maharaja had killed 22 Kashmiris, one after another, outside Central Jail in Srinagar during the court proceedings against one Abdul Qadeer who had asked Kashmiri people to defy the Dogra rule. It was time for Namaz-e-Zuhr when a young man started the call for prayers (Azaan) but was shot dead by the Maharaja’s soldiers. Thus, 22 youth sacrificed their lives till the completion of Azaan.

The victims had gathered along with thousands of Kashmiris in the jail premises to attend the court proceedings. This massacre is the blackest chapter in the history of Dogra regime. The Dogra period is considered to be the worst phase of the Kashmir history on account of cruelties meted out to the Muslims.