Paying tributes to Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohammad Afzal Guroo on their “martyrdom anniversaries”, Chairperson All Parties Hurriyat Conference (g) Syed Ali Geelani Tuesday called for a complete state-wide shutdown on 9th and 11th February and appealed people to hold special prayers on the respective days.Geelani also reiterated his demand for the return back of the mortal remains of both the martyrs buried in Tihar Jail premises.“It is purely a human issue but India is very reluctant to this demand thereby violating all the principles of morality and constitution and in this way its claim of largest democracy in the world is getting badly exposed,” Geelani said.
Geelani said Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohammad Afzal Guru are heroes of the Kashmiri nation—“and we are proud of them”.“Kashmiri nation is resisting the forced and illegal occupation of India from last 69 years and during this period thousands of our valiant and bold people have sacrificed their precious lives for this cause but Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohammad Afzal Guru are two separate cases among these who were detained, executed and buried in the same jail and in same month.”Hurriyat chairman said that Mohammad Maqbool Bhat has a special status in the freedom struggle of Kashmir and if he can be termed as the first solider of the struggle then Mohammad Afzal Guru’s “last letter” became a new milestone for the freedom struggle and set a new trend.
“His last letter clearly depicts that he was an ideological person and his emotions were having the backing of faith, intellect and conscience,” the statement added.Geelani said that the best way of paying tributes to Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohammad Afzal Guru is that the nation should not forget these “brave sons of the soil” who had sacrificed their “present” for the future of the nation.While appealing for complete shutdown on 9th and 11th February and organizing of special prayers, Geelani said that until the mortal remains of both the martyrs are not returned back to their families, “the whole nation will not let down this demand”.Meanwhile Hurriyat (g) while paying tributes to advocate Gh. Mohi-ud-Din Regoo on his 18th death anniversary, Geelani demanded reopening of his murder case.
Accusing the state administration of shielding the culprits, Geelani said that like in the case of Pathribal fake encounter, a similar conspiracy was hatched to close the case in which Colonel Bawa and major Ponia of 17 Jath Regiment and a Kashmiri police officer Mushtaq Sadiq were involved.Geelani said that advocate Regoo was a brilliant advocate and a staunch supporter of freedom struggle, who was arrested in a joint operation of 17 Jats and police on the day of 1st February 1998 and was killed in custody and on 3rd February his body parts were through on road.He said that in this case an FIR was lodged and initial investigations were also started, but after some time due to some unknown reasons the case was closed and the identified culprits were provided safe passage.Expressing his sympathy and solidarity with the family of advocate Regoo, Geelani appealed to the human rights organizations to make a documentation of the unjust killing of Regoo and help his family in reopening the file.The separatist leader said that there are thousands of such cases in Jammu and Kashmir in which “innocent people were killed by Indian Forces”, but none of the case was investigated nor was any culprit punished. “So it is the moral responsibility of International community to use their influence to investigate the cases of innocent killings by Indian forces in disputed land of Jammu & Kashmir.” (CNS)