​ Agitation in Kashmir indigenous, spontaneous: Yasin Malik

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik, released from jail after 113 days, on Sunday insisted that New Delhi should thank Islamabad for not arming the youth of Jammu and Kashmir, who have been pushed to the wall again.

Malik was released on Saturday evening, a few days after former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha-led five-member delegation was successful in meeting two Hurriyat leaders, Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who unanimously demanded immediate release of all political prisoners. The three Hurriyat leaders are jointly issuing protest calendars since July 8, when Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed along with his two colleagues.

The JKLF chairman, who refused to meet the Sinha-led delegation, blamed state chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and her education minister Naem Akhtar for the burning of schools, accusing the PDP-BJP government of confronting students to make them cannon fodder for garnering political benefits. Since July 8, around 23 schools have been burnt across Kashmir, which is being investigated by the police.

“Youngsters have been pushed to take to guns again and again. It happened in 1987 and is happening again.

In year 2008 and 2010, we tried to protest peacefully but India used its military might and pushed youngsters to the wall like 1987-88,” said Malik. “At least 100 rifles were snatched from police and CRPF in the past one year.” In the past one month, around 33 weapons including AK47s and Insas rifkles were snatched from the police in south Kashmir.

“New Delhi must thank Islamabad. If they ( Pakistan) would have supported, there would be 20,000 militants right now in Kashmir.”

The PDP-BJP government, Malik said, was the most shameless dispensation, which doesn’t find any parallel even during the most autocratic governor rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his plans to follow Israel’s footsteps, Malik said, “Israel has no social sanctity across the globe and this is why even the countries with relations with Israel don’t publicise it too much.”