JKLF chief starts 3 day hunger strike in Srinagar

Srinagar, Feb 6: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Mohammad Yaseen Malik today started a three-day hunger strike near here to protest against the killing of innocent civilians by the security forces and Special Operation Group (SOG) of state police in fake encounters.

Mr Malik, who was joined by a number of senior JKLF leaders, including women, started the hunger strike at 0900 hours in a tent erected in the middle of the road near the JKLF headquarter at Maisuma.

A large number of people, including women, were visiting there since morning.

JKLF supporters also took out a procession which dispersed in the down town after marching through different streets.

The agitationsts, raising pro-freedom slogans were also demanding death sentence to security forces and SOG personnel involved in the killings of innocent persons in fake encounter.

They were also demanding probe into all 8000 cases of disappearance in the valley since 1990. Yesterday, Mr Malik led a procession of thousands of people at Kokernag in south Kashmir against these killings.

Mr Malik said the peace process between India and Pakistan has not changed anything on the ground in the Kashmir valley.

He said the security forces and SOG personnel are being rewarded and promoted for killing innocent persons and later labeling them as foreign terrorists.

Mr Malik threatened to start fast unto death if the ''killers'' of innocent persons are not punished and all Human Rights violations by the security forces stopped.

The parents of various youth who had gone missing after arrests since 1990 also demanded a probe into the disappearanses.

The fake encounter killings surfaced after the body of Abdul Rehman Padroo, a carpenter from Kokernag in south Kashmir, was exhumed by the police in Ganderbal area.

The Special Operation Group (SOG) of Jammu and Kashmir police had labeled him as foreign militant killed in an encounter last year.

Later, three more bodies of fake encounter victims were exhumed in the same area, who were also labeled as foreign militants and buried without proper identification. All the victims were later identified by their relatives and DNA samples were taken by experts from Chandigarh for proper identification.

Four SOG officials, have been arrested in this connection.

UNI

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