Separatists urge cops to align with Kashmiris

◗ The separatists said the police should look inward and ‘ ask themselves why they have become an instrument of repression’

Kashmiri separatists on Tuesday asked the members of the state’s police force to “introspect” and identify and align themselves with the “ill- treated and oppressed” fellow Kashmiris instead of “becoming an instrument of repression”.

In a joint statement issued by three key separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, they said the Jammu and Kashmir police personnel, who are a part and parcel of the Kashmiri “nation” and society, should look inward and “ask themselves why they have become an instrument of repression at the hands of Indian authorities in killing and injuring their own children and young men”.

The separatist leaders, who recently formed an issue- based loose alliance, are currently under house arrest or taken into “preventive custody” by the police following the killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a Hizb- ul- Mujahideen commander, which has pushed the Kashmir Valley into days of bloody clashes and mayhem.

They said that by doing what these policemen are doing they “are not only failing their basic responsibility to their own community but incurring the wrath and dislike of their

people”. They said, “The people of Kashmir are so angry and disillusioned with them for their role that they are asking the leadership to excommunicate them and socially boycott them.”

The leaders said that while they have no expectation of restraint or accountability from the Army, CRPF and other Indian paramilitary forces, they expect the same from the J& K police. “Reminding them that at the end of the day they belong to this place and those they kill are innocent young Kashmiris, they asked them to refuse to carry weapons, lethal or otherwise, in dealing with the protesters and not become a part of the design to annihilate Kashmiris,” the statement said.

The Mirwaiz has separately written a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon, seeking his “effective intervention to stop the killing spree and massacre of unarmed civilian population in Kashmir”.

The letter alleges, “The oppression of the State’s coercive machinery has touched a new high...”