While appealing for complete and state-wide shutdown on August 15, Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Sayed Ali Geelani Monday said “we are not against the freedom of any country including India but until this country will accept the freedom right of the Kashmiri people and will provide them a chance to decide their future by allowing independent plebiscite in Jammu & Kashmir, till then it doesn’t have any moral and constitutional right to organize the freedom celebrations on the soil of this state.”While appealing the teachers, students and their parents for completely boycotting the 15 August functions, Geelani in a statement to KNS cautioned the government machinery not to force the teachers and students of the educational institutions to participate in these functions and don’t make them bound for it.
“India itself attained freedom from British rule on 15 August 1947 and became an independent country but only after 72 days of this freedom, this country snatched the freedom rights of the Kashmiri people and forcibly occupied this region by landed its troops on 27 October and since then this occupation continues. This country merely on the bases of its military might are riding on the shoulders of the Kashmiri people and have snatched the freedom of millions of the people of this region,” he alleged.“Kashmiri nation is continuously demanding from last 68 years that India should call back its forces from Kashmir and give us a chance to decide our future. It is purely a democratic demand and India has also promised to fulfil that demand on national as well as international levels but this country backtracked from its promises and is now busy in suppressing the genuine and just voices of the Kashmiri nation,” Geelani added.
The Hurriyat (G) chairman said that organizing its freedom celebration functions on the soil of Kashmir in these situations is amounting to add salt to the injuries of the Kashmiri nation. “India has no right to celebrate its freedom day on our land and if anything like conscience is present among the leaders of this country, then they should immediately stop this process and these functions should be limited to their own country,” he said.Geelani expressed deep concern and sorrow that the government machinery was “forcing the people particularly the teachers and students of the educational institutions to participate in the 15 August functions and they are asked that the bonus marks given in the exams will not be granted to them in case of refusal.”He also expressed his dismay over the reports that “in the name of the cultural programs the students of the educational institutions are prepared to dance and sing in these functions to entertain the ministers and officers of the Indian armed forces.”
Geelani appealed the parents that they should stop their children from participating in these functions “because it is totally against our national pride and our religious as well as social values that our daughters will dance in front of the unknown persons particularly in front of the men in uniform.”The Hurriyat (G) chairman also raised questions over the role of some teachers and lecturers who prepare the students for these functions.