SRINAGAR, 18 December 2002 — A prominent Kashmiri separatist leader led a peaceful march here yesterday to protest against human rights abuses and to press for the release of jailed rebels. Jammu Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (JKDFP) chief Shabir Ahmad Shah and dozens of supporters marched peacefully through the center of Srinagar carrying placards reading: “Stop inhuman treatment — Freedom is our birthright.” Protesters also shouted: “Stop human rights violations — We want freedom.”
Hundreds of separatists, including senior leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Sheikh Abdul Aziz, remain in Indian jails, although the new state government has begun releasing some political prisoners.
Geelani and Aziz are among members of the main moderate separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference of two dozen political and community organizations.
Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik and at least 10 separatists have been released since the new coalition that favors talks with the separatists took office in November. The coalition has also vowed to investigate custodial deaths to promote peace in the war-weary state.
Police were present in strength in the city were prohibitory orders are in force under section 144 which deems assembly of five persons as unlawful. However the district administration allowed Shah’s protest march to proceed smoothly till the protesters dispersed near Regal chowk.
This attitude of the new government is in line with the proclaimed policy of the state government wherein the state chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has said that he would face his political rivals in public.
Shah said yesterday’s march was also against the recent landmark Jammu and Kashmir high court judgment. A division bench of the high court recently held that the centuries old permanent residence law debarring local women from owning or buying property in Jammu and Kashmir once they marry a non-resident was “against the spirit of constitution as it was based on gender bias.”
“The decision is basically meant to change the demography of this Muslim majority state which we will never allow to happen,” Shah said.
Authorities in Kashmir, meanwhile, deny allegations of systematic human rights violations, although they admit isolated cases occur. They say they investigate all reports and punish anyone found guilty. Violence in the strife-torn region has not eased since the new government came to power, despite its conciliatory approach.
Meanwhile, two Indian Army officers were among a dozen people killed in separatist-related violence, police said. The Indian Army officers died late Monday during a fierce seven-hour gunbattle near the town of Anantnag.
Police said the fighting erupted after personnel from the Indian Army’s counter-insurgency National Rifles, ringed a residential house on a tip-off that militants were hiding there.
Two people — a Muslim civilian and a Hindu policeman — were killed and five were wounded in an overnight bomb blast in the southern border town of Rajouri, the spokesman said.
Police said four militants of hard-line group Lashkar-e-Taiba were killed in an inter-group clash with the members of Kashmir’s dominant group Hizbul Mujahedeen in Doda late Monday. The reason for the clash was not immediately known.
Suspected militants shot dead two Muslims, one of them an activist of India’s main opposition Congress — part of ruling coalition in Kashmir — in southern Anantnag and Pulwama districts overnight. A Hizbul militant was shot dead by troops in Kathua district overnight.
