SRINAGAR: All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Chairman Mirwaiz Maulvi Omar Farooq on Wednesday rejected the state government’s inquiry commission into the Shopian rape and murder case and demanded a “probe by an impartial agency to unravel the truth behind the crime.”
Mirwaiz, who traveled to Shopian soon after his release from house arrest, to offer condolences to the bereaved family, addressed a huge rally in the town square in the afternoon and “paid tributes to the people of the town for fortitude in launching an unrelenting agitation for bringing the guilty to book.”
Trashing the government-instituted probe committee, he described it as an “eyewash” and said “the fate of such probes ordered in the past was common knowledge and the fate of this commission would be no different.” He declared “Kashmiris won’t rest their oars till the guilty in the crime are identified and punished.”
He pledged full support of his organization to the ongoing agitation in the town and said, “I would also seek support of other groups for the cause.” He reiterated launch of “an organized and sustained agitation” for the settlement of the Kashmir issue for which he has formulated a five point program. The Mirwaiz was taken in a procession to the town square near the historic Jamia Masjid of Shopian where he addressed the rally.
This was for the first time that the state government allowed a senior separatist leader to enter the Shopian town, where heavy deployment of security forces have foiled earlier such attempts by the separatist leadership. The Shopian action committee has set a deadline of June 29 for “identifying and punishing the guilty” in the rape and murder of 17-year-old Asiya Jan and her pregnant 22-year-old sister-in-law Neelofar Jan. The committee has warned “it won’t be responsible for any consequences in case the deadline is not met.”
