Chairman Hurriyat Conference (G) Syed Ali Geelani on Wednesday strongly condemned the government for “forcibly disallowing” the JRL’s peaceful march to Shopian.He said repeated curbs, restrictions, arrests and detention of resistance leadership and activists is a “classic case of colonial attitude”.“Everyone is aware that the people in southern areas of Kashmir have suffered immensely since past several years and continue to bear the severe brunt,” Geelani said in a statement issued to GNS.Paying his heartfelt tributes to youth killed in Shopian on Sunday, Geelani said civilians are killed and later branded as OWGs. “Forces are carrying genocide and this is unacceptable in civilised societies,” he said.“Hundreds of people mostly our youth have been killed, even children and women are not spared, Geelani said. Recently six young budding youth were brutally massacred by forces, most of these were either students or had nothing to do with militancy,” Hrurriyat (G) chairman asserted.“
Due to this anti-Kashmir operation, every second day, a cordon-and-search operation is launched in some area and the people are tormented and harassed and when they protest against it, they are fired upon, killed, injured or arrested,” he added.“All records of oppression against the people in southern areas have been broken,” Geelani said, adding, “Not even once have we been allowed to visit there to reach out and sympathise and express our support for the hapless, suffering but brave people of south Kashmir.”Slamming authorities, Geelani said they have failed to provide safety to civilians. “It is quite disgusting that people at the helm of affairs and stooges, for the lust of chair, assign least importance to this, instead are parroting about so-called development and constructions of roads and flyovers,” he said.“We demand eviction of forces camps from civilian areas,” Geelani said and adding that these camps are a source of nuisance and harassment for locals. We support demand of people of Shopian for removal of these camps which have come in every nook and corner of south Kashmir,” Geelani added. (GNS)