Total protest strike paralyses India held-Kashmir
Pakistan Times Kashmir Desk

SRINAGAR (IHK): In occupied Kashmir, total protest strike was observed on Monday against upholding by the Indian Supreme Court of death sentence to a Kashmiri youth awarded by a subordinate court in a false case of the so-called attack on Indian Parliament on December-13 in year 2001, reports KMS.

The court also awarded 10-years rigorous imprisonment to another Kashmiri youth in the same fabricated case.

Call for the strike was given by several liberation leaders including, Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Mohammad Yasin Malik and President of the Democratic Freedom Party, Shabbir Ahmad Shah.

Bazaars, business establishments, schools, colleges, courts and semi-government offices remained closed and transport was off the road. Even in government offices, work remained paralyzed, as attendance of employees was negligible.

In-depth

A one-day strike seeking the lifting of a death sentence on a man convicted over a deadly 2001 raid on India's parliament paralysed much of India held-Kashmir, residents said.

Most schools, shops, post offices and banks remained closed in the summer capital Srinagar, while little traffic was seen on the roads. The strike also closed down most government and semi-government offices.

The shutdown was also being observed in other major towns in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley like Sopore, residents said.

"Sopore (has) a deserted look as the strike has totally paralysed life," resident Mushtaq Ahmed said by telephone.

The strike was called by both the hardline and moderate factions of the main alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference [APHC].

India's Supreme Court Thursday upheld a 2003 high court verdict sentencing Mohammed Afzal to death for conspiring to stage the raid, in which five gunmen stormed the parliament complex before being killed by security forces.

"The strike is to call for the lifting of the death sentence," Yasin Malik, the head of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), said.

Malik was the first Kashmiri leader to call for the shutdown when he visited Afzal's home town of Sopore on Friday and led a march demanding the lifting of the death sentence.

India's Supreme Court only rarely authorises executions, which are regularly delayed indefinitely or commuted by the President.

If he is hanged Afzal would be the second Kashmiri to be executed by India since 1984, when JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat was hanged on so-called charges of murder.

India held-Kashmir is in the grip of a 16-year-old insurgency against New Delhi's rule that has left almost 100,000 dead.●