March towards Eidgah on Saturday: Geelani

Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani Friday appealed people to fulfill their “national responsibility of paying tributes to martyrs” by marching in large numbers towards Eidgah tomorrow.According to a statement issued here, Geelani will himself offer fateh khwani (special prayers) at the Eidgah martyrs graveyard and “Kashmiri nation will renew its pledge to take the freedom movement to its logical end on the occasion.”Geelani reiterated that the strike call for tomorrow “has been called to demand action against the government forces responsible for the killings of 118 innocent people last summer and for the release of all political prisoners.”“These 118 people were victims of target killing and, according to medical reports; most of them were shot above the waist.  Public protests take place everywhere in the world but nowhere are protesters targeted.  Firing bullets against stone pelters is unjustified and the no law in the civilized world considers stone pelting as an aggressive act but an expression of anger and an act of resistance,” Geelani said.“Several European countries have witnessed such incidents (of stone pelting), where people express their anger by throwing stones but nowhere were bullets fired. This lawlessness is prevalent only in Kashmir where India has placed its ten lakh strong military to quell the local population,” he said.Geelani said those responsible for civilian killings were roaming free while youth and political leaders who participated in the “public uprising” are languishing in jails.“ One of the reasons behind my appeals to youth to desist from stone pelting lies in the fact that we are not dealing with a civilized force but an army which has no respect for  human life. Any civilized country faced with a movement like the one in Kashmir in 2010 wouldn’t have killed innocent children but would rather have tried to address the aspirations and wishes of people. Things would have been sorted out in a peaceful and amicable manner but in Kashmir India has imposed a jungle raj and that country’s claims of democracy have been badly exposed here,” he said.