Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on Sunday said that police arrested JKLF senior leaders’ vice chairman Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi, vice chairman Mustaq Ajmal and Zonal president Noor Muhammad Kalwal,In a statement issued to KNS, spokesman of the amalgam said that Mushtaq Ajmal and Noor Muhammad Kalwal were taken into custody when they were coming back after attending congregational prayers of JKLF member Shamim Ahmad’s mother at Soibugh Lasjan.“Police stopped their scooter of the leaders who were travelling on and arrested them at Mehjoor Nagar Bridge. Both of them have been shifted to police station Rajbagh, while as police raided JKLF vice chairman Showkat Ahmad Bakhshi and took him in custody at Bemina. Police also has arrested block president of JKLF in Kakapora Pulwama Shabir Ahmad Ganaie and shifted him to Kuthwa jail after slapping PSA on him,” spokesman said.Meanwhile, senior JKLF leader Zahoor Ahmad Butt (younger brother of JKLF founder martyr Muhammad Maqbool Butt) who started a protest hunger strike at police station Kothibagh is still on hunger strike against his illegal incarceration and police highhandedness.
“Zahoor Ahmad Butt who was arrested by police on 20th July from police station Kothibagh where he had gone to meet jailed JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik. Since then he is being kept illegally in police custody and his health has deteriorated considerably. Before arrest he was scheduled to go for an operation in his leg but has been denied that too by police,” spokesman said.JKLF chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik who himself is languishing in central jail Srinagar since July 9 while terming this spree of arrests, and crackdown against JKLF as highly uncivilized and undemocratic said that these kind of anti-democratic acts are a glaring example of frustration the rulers are suffering from.While condemning the callous approach of authorities regarding the hunger strike of JKLF leader Zahoor Ahmad butt in police station, JKLF chairman said that if anything happens to JKLF leader, the responsibility will lie on the shoulders of so-called rulers.Malik said that rulers want to suppress people’s revolution through their oppressive acts but these tyrannical acts are bound to fail as peoples revolutions cannot be intimidated by such undemocratic means.He said that spree of arrests, nocturnal raids, killings and other oppressive measures cannot deter us from perusing the path of truth freedom and despite all these harsh acts of suppression, our struggle for freedom will go on till the desired goal is achieved. (KNS)