Handwara witnesses massive student protests



  • SRINAGAR (Indian Occupied Kashmir): In Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), student protests rocked Handwara town, on Saturday, while Indian police resorted to brute force injuring many of the protesting students including girls; Kashmir Media Service (KMS) reported.

    The students of Degree College Handwara and Higher Secondary School Handwara staged protests against the brutalities of Indian police and troops on students across the IOK Valley during the past over three weeks.

    The students of Degree College also waved Pakistan's "national flag" on the administrative block of the college.

    Indian police fired teargas shells to disperse the students, triggering clashes between the protesters and the police personnel.

    Over two dozen students including 'girls' were injured in the police actions. Some of the students sustained critical injuries.

    The tense situation led to closure of shops and other business establishments in the town.

    The students also staged protests in Newa and Ratnipora areas of Pulwama district against the atrocities of Indian forces against the student community.

    Meanwhile, the Jan Sena, an off-shoot of terrorist Hindu organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has announced in Kanpur that over 1,000 Hindu priests will be sent to occupied Kashmir to assist Indian forces to counter stone-pelters.

    Political observers in Srinagar have described the development as alarming because the RSS had planned to carry out massacre of IOK youth through their trained militants.

    On the other hand, the family members of a driver, Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, who recently was killed in Shopian, talking to media disclosed that Nazir was taken forcibly by the Indian army and was used as a human shield during a military operation.

    All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) chairman Syed Ali Gilani, in a statement, rejected Indian army's claim that Nazir Ahmad Sheikh was killed during a shootout.

    He said that Indian forces had always in their revengeful practice targeted IOK civilians and most probably Nazir was the victim of the same methodology.

    APHC spokesman in a statement in Srinagar strongly denounced the illegal detention of a 10-year-old boy of Aripanthan area of Badgam.

    He appealed to the world human rights organisations to take cognisance of the miserable plight of the illegally detained Kashmiris and help in their release.

    Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement (JKSM) chairman Zafar Akbar Butt, addressing public gatherings in Srinagar and Ganderbal areas, said that the people of IOK were firm in their resolve to get freedom from India.

    A delegation of Voice of Victims (VoV), a local human rights forum, led by its Executive Director (ED) Abdul Qadeer visited Bomai area of Sopore and expressed solidarity with a family whose "female members" were subjected to 'torture' by Indian army a few days ago.

    In Geneva, India faced severe criticism about its poor human rights records from over 100 countries during the third universal periodic review at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council on Thursday.

    Media reports said that the representatives of criticising countries whipped India for the use of brute force by its forces' personnel, internet shutdowns, restrictions on civil society and failure to ratify the relevant convention against torture.

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