SRINAGAR, 14 July 2007 — A general strike yesterday marred life across the valley on Martyrs’ Day even as the chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, paid floral tributes to the martyrs’ of 1931, who died fighting the autocratic rule of the Dogra maharaja.
Shops and businesses remained shut in capital Srinagar and other towns and skeletal public and private transport, however, plied on the roads here.
State government offices, banks, educational institutions, were closed throughout the state, because of a public holiday to mark the occasion. Azad, visited the downtown martyrs’ graveyard in the lawns of a local shrine here under tight security.
Azad laid wreaths on graves of the martyrs’ and offered prayers.
The memorial function was held with traditional color and solemnity. A neatly dressed contingent of Jammu and Kashmir Armed Police lowered their arms and the police band sounded the last post in memory of the martyrs.
Later, talking to newsmen, Azad said that “July 13, 1931 was a significant day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir when people rose against an autocratic dispensation.”
He said, “The people’s fight was not against any individual but against a system. Like the fight against British rule in the rest of the country, the struggle in the state was against autocracy.”
Azad attributed the dawning of “free and democratic atmosphere in the state to their sacrifices.”
“People of the state are today masters of their destiny, enjoying the right to elect their representatives in the state legislature,” the chief minister said.
“People of Jammu and Kashmir today remember with a sense of gratitude the martyrs who sacrificed their lives to replace autocracy with democracy in the state.”
