Pro-freedom camp protest against Shah’s killing

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik Friday said people involved in  the killing of Jamiat Ahle-Hadees chief Maulana Showkat Ahmad Shah were “cowards and murderers” and Kashmiris would go to any extent to unmask them. “Whosoever killed Maulana Showkat is a murderer, a coward even if he claims to be a Mujahid. The killers of Maulana cannot claim that they are involved in a Jehad,” Malik said while addressing a sit-in protest organized by Jamiat-Ahle-Hadees at the Gaw Kadal mosque post Friday prayers today.
Malik said Moulana Showkat was an intelligent man,  gave the pro-freedom movement a “stage at Lal Chowk,” and the people want to know “who was scared of him.”
“We should think whether this killing has not endangered the life of religious and other leaders or put our mosques and shrines at risk,” he said. Malik also welcomed the United Jehad Council’s statement that it would co-operate in exposing Shah’s killers.
Hurriyat Conference(M) chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, proposed a “joint referendum” against the killing across the Valley’s mosques against the killing, saying the protests would continue until the killers are exposed and “we will not repeat the mistakes of the past.’
The leaders also called for a programme for sit-in protest outside the Jamia Masjid next Friday was called. Jamiat AhleHadees President, Ghulam Rasool Malik, senior Hurriyat Conference (M) leaders Aga Syed Hassan and Moulvi Abbas Ansari also spoke on the occasion.
Besides the pro-freedom leaders, several religious leaders and people from different walks of life joined the sit-in protest, demanding punishment for Maulana Showkat’s killers.