The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has described the ongoing eviction and demolition campaign as part of the sinister agenda to dislodge people from their own lands and called for an immediate halt to the practice. Senior APHC leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement in Srinagar said, “The eviction and demolition drive being carried out by the authorities is causing deep anguish and distress among people, seriously impacting their life and livelihood”. He added that one after another “persecutory measure is being taken to make the Kashmiri people strangers in their own motherland.” He asked the Modi regime to stop the drive and instead focus on settlement of the Kashmir dispute in its historical perspective. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq expressed condolences with the family of former president of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf on his demise.

He said that Musharraf reached out to India with an open mind to resolve the Kashmir dispute, while putting the spotlight on the aspirations and sentiments of the people of Jammu and Kashmir as important stakeholders of the conflict. As a result of his efforts, he added, Kashmiri leadership on both sides of the line of divide, for the first time, got an opportunity to talk and listen to each other and put their perspective before the governments of India and Pakistan. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said, the APHC leadership supported this initiative wholeheartedly for the sake of fair solution of the lingering Kashmir dispute, the cause of incessant violence and bloodshed in the nuclear neighbourhood of India, Pakistan and china.

However, the Hurriyat leader deplored that as a result of India’s traditional stubbornness, the process got derailed and the opportunity was lost. Mirwaiz said he believes that progress and development is unlikely to be realised in places of conflict and hostility within boundaries, and in neighbourhood. “So APHC always bats for communication and dialogue among people and states as a conflict resolution means”. The senior APHC leader who completed three and a half years of illegal and enforced house detention, urged New Delhi to pave the way for a just solution to the Kashmir dispute to avert a nuclear catastrophe in the region. Mirwaiz Umar was placed under detention on 4th August 2019, a day before India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and divided into two Union Territories.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP