Rally in Srinagar teargassed We are not anyone’s puppets, says Farooq
Shia mourners in large numbers on Sunday defied curfew-like restrictions at several places across the Kashmir valley, including the central towns of Budgam and Magam and Srinagar’s Zadibal area by taking out tazia and zuljanah processions to commemorate Muharram.
Except at Zadibal, where
16 persons were injured in police action, these events passed off peacefully after the mourners, including women, marched along the streets and alleys beating their chests, reciting elegies and chanting slogans and some of them also self-flagellating.
In Budgam, a predominantly Shia town located
27 km west of Srinagar, thousands of mourners participated in the Zuljanah procession. Zuljanah, bought and raised by Prophet Muhammad, was the horse of Imam Hussain and a very important character in the battle of Karbala. The Zuljanah procession is taken out by Shia Muslims only on the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of Islamic calendar, when Imam Hussain was martyred at Karbala.
Similar processions were taken out also in some other parts of Kashmir whereas elsewhere in the valley only tazia, or mourning processions and rallies, without the participation of Zuljanah replicas were organised by the mourners.
At Zadibal in the heart of Srinagar, the police fired pellet shotguns and also lobbed teargas to disperse the mourners who took to the streets in a tazia procession and clashed with the former. Reports said that 16 persons were injured, most of them receiving multiple pellet wounds. The police detained about 20 people for violating the restrictions in force.
New Delhi, Aug. 30: Reacting sharply to Pakistan hailing the recent Gupkar Declaration in which six political parties of Jammu and Kashmir vowed to fight collectively against the abrogation of Article 370, National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday asserted that “we are not anyone’s puppets”.
“Pakistan has always abused mainstream political parties of Jammu and Kashmir but now suddenly they like us”, the former chief minister said when asked about Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s statement that the declaration issued by the NC, PDP, Congress and three other parties was “not an ordinary occurrence but an important development”.
“Let me make it clear that we are not anyone’s puppets, neither New Delhi’s nor of anyone across the border. We are answerable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and will work for them,” he said from Srinagar.
In response to a question on cross-border terrorism, Abdullah said, “I would urge Pakistan to stop sending armed men into Kashmir. We want an end to the bloodshed in our state. All political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are committed to fight for our rights peacefully, including for what was unconstitutionally snatched away from us on August 5 last year.”