The thrashing that the leaders of All Parties Hurriyet Conference received at the hands of dozens of RSS ruffians at Chandigarh the other day has not weakened their resolve to keep struggling for Kashmir’s liberation from the cruel hold of India. The APHC central leader Bilal Lone, who was a victim, along with Chairman of a faction of APHC Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, told TheNation reporter on telephone on Friday, “We are not scared,” and vowed to continue to exert themselves with all their resources till the goal of independence was achieved. That is the stuff freedom fighters are made of! With that spirit alive in the minds of the Kashmiri people and their leadership, brutalisation, coercion or intimidation or, for that matter, any other obstacle could not for long stand in their way to success.
The Indian intelligence agencies which, as alleged by Mr Lone, masterminded the attack must have ensured that the Kashmiri leaders received no worthwhile police protection when they came to address a seminar on ‘Kashmir and Indo-Pakistan relations’ in the Indian city. That is why the Hindu terrorists kept roughing them up for 45 long minutes, with no sign of any security force appearing on the scene. It is no coincidence that neither any political party in the so-called secular and democratic India, nor its government has come forward to condemn the ugly incident or apologise to the Kashmiri leaders for the harm done to them. The international community that is ordinarily prone to jump at the slightest violation of human rights or of democratic principles anywhere should feel ashamed at the silence it is observing in the face of Indian terrorists’ brutal treatment of those who are demanding nothing but their promised, democratic right. It is as if the world is endorsing the Indian leadership’s connivance at their ill treatment – Nation
