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| Widespread condemnation forces Geelani to call shutdown in hometown | | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
EARLY TIMES REPORT
SRINAGAR, Feb 3: Cold-blooded killing of two young women, that has been conveniently downplayed or completely ignored by most of the separatist leaders and human rights groups for allegedly being a handiwork of separatist militants, today generated first protest demonstration in the summer capital. Under the impact of widespread public condemnation across the Valley, hardliner separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani has finally called for a shutdown in the north Kashmir apple town on Friday.
Carrying placard and asking Hurriyat (G) Chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, why he had not called for any shutdown against the Sopore killings, scores of men, women and children, appeared at Sher-e-Kashmir Municipal Park in Civil Lines in the forenoon today. They registered their strong protest against killing of two young daughters of a poor labourer, Ghulam Nabi Dar of Muslim Peer, Sopore, while shouting slogans against the killers. For fear of reprisal from militants, a number of the participants had their faces covered. As already reported, 17-year-old Aarifa and 20-year-old Akhtara, had been dragged out by gunmen late in the night on January 31 and shot dead near Rahim Sahab shrine in Sopore.
Participants described themselves as members of a non-governmental organization even as many in media suspected it as a Police-sponsored demonstration and did not lend too much of importance to the outburst. Similar demonstrations had been witnessed in the Civil Lines during the thick of last year's mass uprising that was publicly sponsored by Geelani and his hardliner supporters. That time, demonstrators had questioned Geelani's wisdom of enforcing over a hundred shutdowns through four months of the academic and tourist season.
Demonstrators in today's rally, whose number was not legion, expressed surprise over the double standards adopted by politicians and human rights activists vis-à-vis killings happenings at the hands of security forces, Police, counter-insurgents and separatist militants since 1989 in Jammu and Kashmir. They pointed out that politicians, human rights groups and media had raised hue and cry selectively on the killings committed by Police, armed forces and other government agencies but the same civil society groups and politicians, separatist as well as mainstream, had conveniently downplayed the twin murder in Sopore that was widely believed to the handiwork of separatist militants. |
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