Srinagar: Joint resistance leaders and activists Monday staged a protest against the plight of prisoners lodged in the State and outside. The protestors demanded immediate release of the all the prisoners including elderly and youth booked under Public Safety Acts over the past five months of uprising.
According to a joint statement issued here, a large number of resistance leaders and workers of various groups staged a protest march from historic Jamia Masjid towards Nowhatta Chowk here. “The protest is aimed at expressing solidarity with thousands of people arrested arbitrarily under draconian laws. The fate of prisoners is miserable especially those lodged in Kot Bhalwal, Kathua, Hira Nagar and Udhampur,” said the statement.
In the protest, activists and leaders from Hurriyat Conference (G), Hurriyat Conference (M) and JKLF participated. The leaders said that J&K jails are worse that infamous Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, where political prisoners face both mental and physical torture.
“The elderly people suffering from multiple ailments are being rejected the medical facilities. The jail manual is being violated in every prison,” they said.
Denouncing the decision of the PDP-BJP coalition government of providing domicile certificates to West Pakistan refugees and the decision of the Supreme Court about the implementation of SARFEASI Act, the protesting leaders said this was a ploy to change the demography of the state.
“PDP-led coalition government was only taking anti-people decisions and implementing the nefarious designs of the right wing extremist organisations of converting the Muslim-majority state into a Muslim-minority state and changing the demography of the region on the pattern of Israel,” said the statement. The protesting leaders said PDP has become a collaborator of these extremist groups and were busy in putting the lives of Kashmiri Muslims at auction while executing their anti-people decisions, which would not be accepted at any cost.
They said if anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmir decisions were not stopped forthwith, a massive agitation would be launched and the results would be the responsibility of the government.The leaders and workers who participated in the protest march and sit-in included Muhammad Shafi Khan, Peer Saifullah, Sheikh Abdul Rashid, Sofi Mushtaq Ahmad, Raja Mehraj Kalwal, Abdul Majeed Wani, Muhammad Yaseen Bhat, Farooq Ahmad Saudagar, Imtiyaz Haider, Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, Abdul Rashid Untoo, Muhammad Sidiq Shah and Jaffar Kashmiri.