Srinagar, Dec 18: Former legislator and Awami Ittehad party (AIP) leader Shiekh Abdul Rashid (Er Rasheed) on Tuesday said the Governor Satya Pal Malik and his advisors should own the responsibility of seven civilian deaths in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district over the weekend.
Following his release from detention, Rasheed in a news conference here said the Governor and his advisors must own the killings of seven civilians in forces’ firing in Pulwama on Saturday.
“While security agencies are duty-bound to work under directions of civil administration but unfortunately the divisional and district administration have become mouth pieces of security agencies,” he said.
Rasheed said that the “fake’ inquiries and condolences from the administration are in itself a confession of guilt.
“It is strange that on one hand everyone from army chief to home minister to governor was justifying the killings by blaming the slain civilians and calling every stone-pelter a terrorist and every pro-active Kashmiri an OGW of militants, but on the other hand each of them is condemning the incident, asking for inquiries and showing sympathy with the families of those butchered in Pulwama,” Rasheed said.
Kashmiris, he added, were fighting for a political resolution to the dispute and need peace more than anybody else.
“There are no Veerapans in Kashmir,” he said while referring to infamous sandalwood smuggler shot dead by the forces in Karnataka. “People in Kashmir are fighting for the right of self-determination.”
Pertinently, Governor’s Advisor on Security, Vijay Kumar, had headed the crack team that killed Veerapn.
Justifying the “Badami Bagh chalo’ call of the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), Rasheed said it was the “most civilised way to protest against the massacre in Pulwama”.
Seven civilians were killed after the government forces opened fire on protesters in Sirnoo village of Pulwama on Saturday following a gunfight that left three militants and a soldier dead.
Former MLA from Langate also welcomed the statements by the Amnesty International and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) over the killing of seven civilians in government forces’ firing in Pulwama on Saturday, but said such international institutions need to move beyond words and play their role in “ending bloodshed” in the Valley.
“We, the people of Kashmir, thank OIC and Amnesty International for condemning the Pulwama killings. But let me make them a humble request that they need to move beyond words. Our wounds cannot be healed with words,” Rashid told reporters here.
The AIP chief said the international community should see the “sufferings of Kashmiris through humanitarian prism and play their role in ending bloodshed by moving beyond words”.
Hitting out at Army chief General Bipin Rawat, the former MLA said “the way he has been threatening Kashmiris and trying to abuse everyone who dares to speak against barbarism, he is simply lowering his stature.”
