Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control, as well as the rest of the world, observed black day on Sunday in protest against the visit of fascist and hard-liner Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Jammu region of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu Kashmir (IIOJK).
The call for observing black day against Modi’s visit to IIOJK was given by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and was supported by Azad Jammu and Kashmir government.
It also aimed at registering a protest against continued forced Indian occupation at a time when the Kashmir freedom struggle has reached its climax, as the blood-stained streets of IIOJK are continuously being echoed with mass resentment.
In Azad Kashmir, demonstrations were held on the call of AJK Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas. A large “black day” protest rally was held in the capital Muzaffarabad and led by AJK minister Khawaja Farooq Ahmed and representatives of other political parties.
The rally started from Burhan Wani Chowk and ended at Ghari Pin Chowk. Apart from banners with anti-India and pro-independence slogans, the participants also held black flags and chanted slogans against Modi.
Addressing the participants on the occasion, Khawaja Farooq Ahmed said the protesters wanted to convince the international community through demonstrations that Kashmiris never recognised the Indian occupation and the arrival of a person like Modi – whose “hands are stained with the blood of innocent Kashmiris” – in any part of the territory was a “highly undesirable” thing for them.
He called upon the international community, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, to sever their relations with India, as they had done with Russia over the war in Ukraine. He lamented the “double standards” of the international community in the case of Kashmiris.
Ahmed said that the UN and the international community should press India to give Kashmiris their right to self-determination. He said that India-occupied Kashmir was under a continuous curfew in which people’s livelihoods were being destroyed under a “premeditated plan” so that they could not raise voices against India.
Mushaal Hussein Mullick, the wife of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Yasin Malik, said that Modi’s visit was “nothing but a cruel joke with the Kashmiri people, according to APP. She vowed that the brave people of Kashmir would observe a complete shutdown on Modi’s visit to give a clear message to him as well as to the world that Kashmiris would not accept brutal subjugation anymore. At the end of the rally, prayers were offered for the independence of the occupied territory.
In another rally, arranged by the National Events Organizing Committee, speakers said the bleeding region of occupied Jammu and Kashmir had been turned into the largest prison on the earth during the last over two years and about 8 months through complete communication and information blocked by the Indian occupational forces. They said furious Kashmiris were constantly defying all restrictions, taking to the streets against the August 5 Indian sinister action of scrapping the special status of the Jammu and Kashmir.
Lambasting the hard-liner and fanatic Indian prime minister, the speakers described the BJP’s Hindutva ideology as a threat to regional peace and urged upon the United Nations to perform its due responsibility for resolving the much-delayed Kashmir issue in line with the UN resolutions.
