Regional PDP president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti Sunday asked Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to apologise to the families of civilians killed in a staged encounter at Hyderpora in Srinagar last week.
During a protest march towards Raj Bhavan here, she said that the LG should apologise to the families of Altaf Bhat, Mudasir Gul and Aamir Magray, who were killed last week.
“The label of OGW and hybrid militant should be removed from the names of Mudasir and Aamir and the culprits of these killings should be put behind bars and given a strict punishment,” the PDP chief demanded.
Mufti said that the security forces were not sure about the presence of militants in the building “and till now nobody knows whether any militant was killed in that encounter or not.”
“The police had claimed that four people were killed in the Hyderpora encounter. Where is the body of the militant then? Nothing is known about the militant yet, they have just killed three innocent civilians leaving the entire valley into a state of pain and despair,” she said.
The PDP president also demanded that the body of Aamir Magray who has been labeled as “hybrid militant” should be returned back to his family for performing his last rites. “A judicial probe should be carried out to inquire into the Hyderpora incident as the victim families have alleged that their members were used as human shields by the forces,” the former CM said.
“The family of Aamir had been urging the authorities to return his body. It is our demand to return his body and provide compensation to his bereaved family,” she added.
The firebrand PDP president alleged that Kashmiris have been deprived of their basic human rights. “By abrogating Article 370, the government has ruined the credibility of the Constitution of India. The agenda of RSS and BJP is to suppress the minorities of the country especially Jammu and Kashmir as we are a Muslim majority state,” she alleged.
“Vicious cycles of atrocities are being committed on the people of Jammu and Kashmir just because we are Muslims,” Mehbooba claimed. “Freedom of expression has been snatched from people of Kashmir and everyday journalists are being questioned, detained, and harassed.”
“The media which is the fourth pillar of democracy has been silenced at gunpoint in Kashmir. Leading newspapers are being asked to vacate their offices so as to suppress them because they don’t want them to report the truth and it doesn't work. They want them to work for them same as godi media,” the former CM alleged.
She also said that the people of Kashmir had chosen India based on its democratic principles and secularism, “but they had never imagined that they would have to beg before this country for the bodies of their loved ones.”
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