SRINAGAR: Senior pro-Independence leader Mohammad Yasin Malik says he will observe a three-day hunger strike here beginning May 24.
The separatist leader, who heads the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, will be protesting against the life imprisonment of several Kashmiri youth and to seek the return of mortal remains of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat.
He was earlier denied permission and arrested by the Delhi police ahead of his scheduled protest hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on May 3.
“India claims to be following Gandhi his his principles (of non violence) but I could not find it there. What I find there are only killers,” Malik told a press conference this afternoon.
“Government is compelling people of Kashmir to act like Taliban to fight for their rights.”
The JKLF leader has accused the Indian government of “deceitfully suppressing the non-violent movement” in Kashmir.
He said protesters, mostly the youth were awarded hefty punishment and detained under Public Safety Act, which provides for detention without trial for six months.
Malik said that the Indian government and Indian civil society will be blamed if the armed conflict between militants and security forces, waning since a decade now, was indeed revived.
“They created graveyards in every village, disrespected each and every individual in Kashmir,” the JKLF leader said, adding “We had the gun and they persuaded us to leave it. But then they forgot everything. This gave us a sense of defeat.”
