SRINAGAR: Kashmir’s pro-Independence party, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) plans to hold a hunger strike in the national capital, New Delhi in protests against what it believes are “disproportionate” punishments to Kashmir’s separatist workers.
The punishments, which it believes are awarded at the behest of New Delhi, were “causing the space for a non violent struggle” to shrink.
JKLF chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik also said he is worried that armed conflict might flare up again in the region, where more than two decades of violence which killed tens of thousands of people is waning.
“Instead of providing us a space, we are now receiving sentences from courts handing down life imprisonment and death penalties to freedom fighters,” he said.
The announcement comes days after the party’s 10-day ‘jail bharo’ agitation against “misuse of judiciary by New Delhi” ended.
Shrinking Space
The JKLF chairman, Muhammad Yaseen Malik said he will soon hold a 48-hour-long hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to attract attention of the world community towards the plight of Kashmiri prisoners serving life imprisonment and death sentences.
The punishments, he said, were contradictory to promises “made by the Indian civil society and United States” that a space would be provided to a non-violent movement.
Malik, who has fought Indian troops and spent four years in prison before announcing a peaceful struggle in 1994, accused the authorities of pushing the Kashmiri youth to the wall.
“The youth is now faced with the dilemma whether the decision favouring non-violent transition was the right one. There is a risk that they might resort to violence in the future,” he said.
He said in 2008 the youth took a “conscious and collective decision in favour of transition from a violent to a non-violent one”. “In spite of this, 72 non-violent protesters were killed in 2008 and 124 in 2010,” Malik added.
He said his party will also engage with those members of the civil society who, according to him, had assured their support if the group transformed their movement in Kashmir towards non-violence.
