No shutdown tomorrow: Hurriyat (G)

Srinagar: Castigating the government for imposing curfew on Friday, Chairman of his faction of Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani modified the amalgam’s protest calendar, asking people to observe Saturday as a “normal” day. “Since the government yet again denied any respite to people by imposing a curfew despite our call for no strike today, there would be no strike tomorrow (Saturday) and people resume normal activities while school children should attend schools,” Geelani said in a statement issued here. Reiterating that the relaxations in the “strike calendar” were in accordance with the “demands of freedom movement and to provide people respite, Geelani urged “pro-freedom youth to understand that relaxation is as important strike in order to keep the movement going.” The Hurriyat (G) chairman said the government was using curfew as a “tool of collective punishment.” “A government that wages a war against its own people has no moral right to continue ruling them,” he said. Geelani said when the Hurriyat (G) called for observing a civil curfew on Monday as part of the ongoing “freedom movement” , the government tried to project it as a war against education. “ But when the students tried to attend schools in view of our call today, they were forced to go back to their homes by CRPF troops and police. This double standard attitude has exposed the real intention of New Delhi and its stooges in Kashmir,” he said.