Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani on Wednesday appealead for peaceful protests after Friday prayers against the “cold-blooded murder of the Bemina youth Tanveer Sultan Sheikh”.Tanveer, according to the government, died in a shootout with police and paramilitary forces in Kud area of Udhampur on Monday - a claim rubbished by his family
In a statement, Geelani said that it has been proven now that the police story regarding the Udhampur episode is “baseless and completely wrong and the reality is that the said Kashmiri youth was not only having no links with the armed struggle but he was a disabled person who was killed without committing any crime.”“We usually observe shutdown to register our protest against these kinds of tragedies but in the view of holy month of Ramadan this option was not adopted,” said Geelani.While expressing his heartfelt sympathy with the affected family, Geelani said that the Hurriyat Conference and the entire nation equally share their grief.While lashing out at the government, he said that the way in which the Udhampur incident was explained in the so-called assembly and the murderers were tried to shield is very sorrowful and it should be condemned at every level.“This assembly has become a defending institution and the official mouthpiece of the Indian occupational forces where the killing of an innocent citizen is justified without any investigation and the police version is taken as sacred verses,” rued Geelani. (CNS)