13 Kashmiris arrested over ‘anti-India protests’

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD: Indian troops arrested over a dozen youths over “anti-India protests” during an ongoing crackdown in the Pulwama district of Indian-occupied Kashmir (IOK) on Wednesday.

According to the Kashmir Media Service, Indian troops launched massive cordon and search operations in the Sirnoo, Monghama and Kareemabad areas of the district, where they barged into houses, ransacked household goods and rounded up at least 13 youths.

Residents complained that the troops also harassed them. A police official claimed the youths were arrested on charges of taking part in anti-India protests.

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir Tehreek-e-Wahdat-e-Islami, an All Parties Hurriyat Conference constituent, said in a statement that the creation of a new political party in occupied Kashmir backed by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is a betrayal of the blood of Kashmiri martyrs.

The new political party, ‘Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party’, led by Altaf Bukhari, has been described as “an offshoot” of the BJP by mainstream political parties in the disputed territory, the Kashmir Media Service reported.

Separately in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Youth Social Forum Chairman Omar Adil Dar, addressing a party meeting said relations between Pakistan and India cannot improve without the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. In Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir People’s League organiser Ahmed Sheikh, along with a party delegation, visited the residence of a martyred youth, Aamir Ahmad, in the Malhora neighbourhood of the district, to express solidarity with his family. He said the unresolved Kashmir issue poses a great threat to peace in the region.

Separately, the High Court of occupied Kashmir has directed Indian authorities to respond to a petition seeking the shifting of illegally detained Kashmir Bar President, Mian Abdul Qayoom, from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail to Srinagar.

Illegally detained senior APHC leader, Masarrat Aalam Butt, was presented before a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court in Jammu in a case filed against him in 2012. The court set the case for hearing on April 9.

The APHC leader has largely been in jail since 2008. In the past 25 years, he has been booked 37 times under the contentious PSA.