Geelani reacts to Nirupama Roy’s statement

Srinagar: In a sarcastic rebuff to Indian Foreign Secretary Nirumpama Rao’s statement that India had strong objections to Kashmir being compared to the situation in Libya, Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani Thursday said that there “really are no similarities between the two because the international community is well aware of what is happening in Libya for the first while India blacked out the events of 2008, 2009 and 2010 in Kashmir.”“Even if the international community received any news during these three years, no attention was paid because Kashmir doesn’t have any oil wells,” Geelani said in a statement issued here to.Geelani said in a way the situation in Libya was that country’s “internal situation” while as in the case of Kashmir “India has occupied a neighbouring country through its military force.”“There it’s an issue of change of regime but in Kashmir it’s a question of ending a foreign occupation,” he said in a statement to.“In Libya one man in his attempts to save his power is allegedly committing atrocities on his own people while in Kashmir south Asia’s most powerful nation is at war with ordinary people and is utilizing all its state resources to crush the people’s sentiment for freedom. The Libyan problem is a year old while Kashmiris have been suffering under Indian occupation for 64 years and, according to international broadcasting agencies, some 1000 people have died in the unrest there so far while 1 lakh Kashmiris have perished to Indian forces’ bullets,” Geelani said.Geelani rejected Rao’s statement that India had been handling the situation in Kashmir with “openness and transparency”, terming it as a “crude joke.”“Where are the ten thousand people disappeared by Indian forces during the last two decades? Who are the thousands of people buried in unidentified graveyards discovered in high military presence areas of Kashmir? Even today thousands of Kashmiris are languishing in jails and thousands are subjected to torture in interrogation centres. Despite all this if Nirupama Rao says everything is alright in Kashmir, she is only lying to the international community,” Geelani said.The Hurriyat (G) chairman urged the Amnesty International to send a fact finding group to Kashmir in order to ascertain the facts here. Yesterday, when asked about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi raising the issue about atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir and comparing it to the situation in country, Rao had said that India had “very strong objections and reservations to Kashmir being referred to in that sort of context”.