NIA ‘widening’ its probe to harass separatist leadership: JRL
Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) Monday denounced the Government of India (GoI) for widening its ambit of “investigations” by the NIA to ‘harass and pressurize’ the leadership.
JRL said that the NIA has so far failed to prove any evidence against the pro-freedom leaders despite raids and quizzing.
According to the joint statement issued here, the JRL including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that after arbitrarily raiding the houses of leaders, party activists and workers associated with the Hurriyat and some traders by the NIA, arbitrary notices were sent to them by the agency telling them to come to Delhi for the investigation.
In the meantime, the family members and relatives of the leadership were also issued notices by the NIA.
“And now notices are being issued to prestigious and esteemed educational and social institutions such as Anjuman Nusratul Islam and Auqaf Jamia Masjid associated with the leadership. Targeting these organizations and harassing those associated with it for political reasons of intimidation is ridiculous and completely unacceptable. The repercussions of these vengeful and arm twisting moves by the Government and its bearing on the situation in Kashmir will lie completely with those implementing these dirty ploys,” they said.
“What is a matter of great concern to us is that all the notices served by the NIA for so called questioning of the concerned, and asking them to come to New Delhi, whereas this ‘questioning’ business can be done here in Srinagar at their regional office,” they said.
“The kind of hostile and anti-Kashmir sentiment and hatred created by the government throughout India through its ‘viscous and jingoistic’ electronic media poses a serious life threat to those who are served the notices and asked to come to New Delhi,” the statement cautioned.
“The fear of being physically harmed or even lynched is very real in such circumstances. As such the leadership is seriously thinking that anyone who is served the notice by NIA for the ‘so called’ investigation should not go to New Delhi. If it has to be done by the agency it should be conducted in Srinagar and warned the Government that the security of these people is their responsibility and if any harm comes to anyone among them, the government will be solely responsible for it,” the statement added.
“So far NIA team has failed to prove any evidence against pro-freedom leaders despite raids and quizzing,” JRL said.
The leadership said that basically this ploy is part of the greater plan, conceived in the power corridors of New Delhi at the onset of year 2017.
“The plan is a multi pronged strategy which includes increase in military repression especially targeting of the youth, involving and implicating the Valley’s pro-freedom leadership in false cases, re-opening previous cases against pro-freedom leaders, identifying and intimidating writers intellectuals civil society members and business community for their association with the peoples movement and giving voice to the extreme oppression happening here and economic strangulation of the people,” he said.
JRL said that despite the fact that GoI has left no stone unturned to crush the genuine sentiment in Kashmir, it has completely failed, as is proved by the fact that it now has to resort to such tactics.
“70 years on, Delhi has not succeeded one bit in changing the basic disputed nature of Kashmir and that people of Kashmir continue to remain committed to on-going movement, which is based on truth and sacrifices, and the latest NIA crackdown is destined to taste defeat too,” the leaders said in the statement.
KV Correspondent
