Govt promoting immorality: Geelani

Srinagar: Strongly denouncing the eve-teasing of a girl allegedly by some CRPF troopers at Kashmir Haat last evening, Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Monday accused the government of deliberately promoting “immorality and other social evils in Valley.”“After Botanical garden and Tulip garden, the government is now using the Exhibition grounds (Kashmir Haat) for the same purpose. New Delhi wants to uproot our moral values and traditions by plunging our youth into a morass of drugs, liquor and other evils. All this is being done to weaken our younger generation’s resolve towards freedom,” Geelani said during his address to a public gathering at Lagipora, Sopore, where he had gone to express his condolences with the families of Sameer Ahmad Lone and Farhat Maqsood,  killed during last year’s summer  unrest in government forces action.Geelani said the freedom struggle was not for “a change of ruling hands but for replacing injustice with justice, and creating a society on the basis morality and equality.”“It must also be made clear that there is no place for religious antagonism in Islam and all non-Muslims are our brothers on humanitarian basis. They (non-Muslims) should harbor no fears of violence or anything else from the majority Muslim community of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.The Hurriyat(G) chairman said there was no justification for “India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir and India and its stooges are doing Kashmiris no favour by carrying out developmental works in Kashmir , because the money spent on these projects is a small amount of our own resources.”“The lion’s share of the electricity produced from our water resources benefits India’s northern region while the Valley reels under darkness. According to recent figures, the Indian Army is occupying 65 lakh kanals of land of Kashmiris for which no compensation is being paid. Worse, the Army is looting Kashmir’s forests with impunity,” he said.“While ordinary people are booked under the PSA for gathering firewood from forests, the government has closed its eyes on the numerous joineries operating in army camps across Kashmir, from where officers and soldiers smuggle furniture outside the state,” he saidEarlier, Geelani paid a visit to late Haji Abdul Gani Lone‘s residence in Bomai Sopore and expressed his condolences with the bereaved family.