The Kashmir Valley was shut on Monday coinciding with the International Human Rights Day. While the Kashmiri Muslim expatriates and activists held open and close-door protest rallies in various world capitals, including London, Washington and Islamabad, Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, witnessed prominent writers, poets, doctors, lawyers and other professionals joining pro-independence JKLF leader Muhammad Yasin Malik at a token hungerstrike against the alleged human rights violations committed by the security forces in the state.
Also present were the family members of some of the “victims” of the abuses.
Activists of all-women separatist outfit Muslim Khawateen Markaz, which is a constituent of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat Conference faction held a protest rally at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.
In the evening, the JKLF also held a torchlight procession in Srinagar to highlight the “grave” human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir. The speakers at these parades held in the backdrop of various courts in and outside the state awarding life sentences to several Kashmiri separatist activists and former militants convicted in cases of murder, abductions and arson accused India of violating human rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the charge the government strongly denies.
The call for Monday’s shutdown had been issued by Yasin Malik who had after two more Kashmiri separatist activists were awarded life imprisonment by a Jammu anti-terrorist court last week said that various courts in India have sentenced as many as 19 Kashmiris to life imprisonment whereas some others have been awarded capital punishment during past two years. Terming these “unfair court verdicts” wherein the accused “were not provided no or little opportunity to defend themselves,” he alleged that the Indian government was “misusing” judiciary to “break the will of the people of Kashmir.”