Kashmir: Moderate Kashmiri leader says Govt muzzling Kashmiri voices

Srinagar, IRNA Moderate Kashmiri leader, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq Thursday said that the government was muzzling Kashmiri voices.

Claiming that his latest diplomatic offensive on Kashmir to have been a success, Mirwaiz said here today that the state government was “playing a dangerous game” to throw the five-month long agitation off the track, and that the 'fake encounter' in city on Monday was a part of the game plan to justify massive troops presence and government violence.

Mirwaiz said, “New Delhi and its agencies are hell bent on projecting the Kashmir issue negatively before its masses, so no one among them raises question over harsh measures on Kashmir.”

He said that the state and the central governments were responsible for the attacks on him in Chandigarh, Kolkotta and Delhi along with fanatic communal groups, and that they could not absolve themselves of blame.

“The reason is that the Indian masses are forced to view the Kashmir issue through the Pakistan prism,” the Mirwaiz said.

“But the mass movement of the past five months has made the Indian public realize that the Kashmiri struggle is indigenous and aimed solely at getting rid of Indian occupation,” he said.
“During our seminars, I stressed that the Kashmir issue was the real cause of tensions between two important neighbours India and Pakistan and a threat to the stability of the entire region,” he said.

“I emphasised that relations between India and Pakistan would never improve unless the Kashmir issue was resolved in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people,” he said.


Terming Monday’s shootout in Qamarwari area of Srinagar as a fake encounter, the Mirwaiz said that the killing of three innocent youth in the incident two days ago was highly tragic.

“The aim of these fake encounters is to provide justification for the presence of the 7 lakh troops in Kashmir and the use of violence to suppress peaceful protests,” he said.