Kashmiris to observe India’s Independence Day as Black Day
SRINAGAR – The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has called upon the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) to observe India’s Independence Day today (Thursday), as a Black Day to protest against New Delhi’s illegal occupation of their homeland.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the APHC leaders, currently jailed in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, urged the Kashmiris to send a strong message to India that they reject its occupation and demand their fundamental right to self-determination.
The APHC leaders, Masarrat Aalam, Butt, Shabbir Ahmad Shah and Nayeem Ahmed, in their separate messages, said that India has no legal or moral right to celebrate its Independence Day in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. They emphasized that India’s occupation of Kashmir is a brazen violation of international law and UN resolutions.
The leaders reiterated the Kashmiris’ resolve to take the ongoing plebiscite demand to its logical conclusion. They said that the day is not far when Kashmiris would achieve their cherished goal of freedom.
Other APHC leaders in Srinagar also asked the people of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir to register their strong protest by observing August 15th as a Black Day against the India’s policy of not resolving the Kashmir dispute and the subsequent severe repression unleashed on them.
They said that for the past 77 years, the Kashmiri people have been demanding the right to self-determination, which was promised to them by the Indian leadership in the United Nations, the Indian Parliament, and even by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Srinagar. However, till this day, that commitment remains unfulfilled, and those who remind India of it are rewarded with arrests and incarceration.
