Shutdown in Valley on JKLF founder’s death anniversary
The Kashmir valley witnessed a complete shutdown on Monday due to a strike called by the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) to mark the 35th death anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder, Maqbool Bhat, who was hanged in New Delhi’s Tihar jail in 1984.
The JRL, consisting of both factions of Hurriyat Conference and JKLF, had called the shutdown to demand that Bhat’s mortal remains be returned for burial in Kashmir.
Police detained some JKLF leaders and workers, who tried to take out a protest demonstration from Maisuma locality in Srinagar. The authorities have places several separatist leaders under house arrest to prevent them from holding protest marches.
Additional security was placed in the old city and Trehgam in Kupwara district, the native town of Maqbool Bhat, where a demonstration was taken out on Sunday evening. Shops and business establishments in the Valley remained closed and train services were also suspended.
PDP LEADER WANTS BACK REMAINS OF AFZAL GURU, BHAT
On Monday, Rajya Sabha member and senior People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader, Fayaz Mir wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking mortal remains of both Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru, who were buried at the Tihar jail after they were hanged. ‘’We are well beyond the academic discussion on capital punishment and whether Guru should have been sent to the gallows even though he was at number 28 of the list of death row prisoners. However, his execution and the refusal to return his body by then incumbent government till date remains a sore misery and a dark blemish on the largest democracy in the world,’’ reads the letter.
Mir wrote, “I request you to please consider returning his mortal remains. How can dead bodies of two Kashmiri men, who lost their dignity in gallows be a threat to a democracy like India”
He added, “In a country where the killers of an elected PM were granted clemency and their death sentence was commuted, I do not think it is appalling or disrespectful to seek return of mortal remains of two Kashmiri men to their families.’’