Peaceful 2011 depends on police, army not killing innocents: Geelani

Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani Saturday said a peaceful 2011 depends on the police and the army not “killing innocent people” and that the amalgam has no programme of “prolonged hartals or violent protests to disrupt the tourism season or educational activities.”In fact, Geelani alleged, it was India which wanted to destroy Kashmir’s economy by fanning “rumours of a repetition of last year’s summer unrest.”“Whether the 2011 summer remains peaceful or not depends on the police and army. If they kill innocent people and continue to arrest people it will naturally have a reaction. Although Hartals are the only way of registering a peaceful protest, Hurriyat Conference would never call for Hartals unnecessarily,” Geelani said in a statement issued here toI.  “It was the Machil fake encounter and killings of hundreds of youngsters like Wamiq Farooq, Zahid Farooq and Tufail Matoo that forced Kashmiris to come onto streets and stage protests. Those who accuse us of disrupting peace in 2010 and wanting to repeat the same in 2011 want to cover up the war crimes of India army and police,” he said, adding that India wanted to “destroy” Kashmir’s economy by hurting the tourism season through rumours of summer unrest.Geelani said uncertainty would hover over Kashmir as long as it remained under “India’s military occupation and no one can predict the future situation in such an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.”Flaying the police top brass for speaking “white-lies”, Geelani said that the department in its race for being more loyal than the king was giving false figures of arrested people , which “ is evident from their contradictory statements.”“Kashmir-based officials of the International Red Cross know that from minors to aged persons hundreds of Kashmiris are in jails, 60 percent of them detained without any genuine legal case under the draconian Public Safety Act. Today’s hartal call was against this injustice and oppression and not meant to put Kashmiris through any undue trouble,” Geelani said while thanking people for observing strike today.