The Joint Resistance Forum (JRF) of separatists, which is feeling the heat from National Investigation Agency (NIA), on Wednesday said they will a stage a protest on Saturday outside the NIA headquarters in New Delhi and court arrest against the government's use of ''fear as a tool to intimidate and psychologically torture people”.
“We will be going to New Delhi on September 9 (Saturday) to hold a protest dharna outside NIA headquarters and ask them to arrest us and stop the campaign to malign the movement in Kashmir,'' said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq at a press conference.
Farooq, who along with Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik have formed the JRF, said, ''Our movement is indigenous and not sponsored. It is prompted by people of Kashmir who want freedom”.
He alleged that the NIA is psychologically torturing people and pressurising them. “First we were labeled as anti-nationals, then separatists and now terrorists for demanding that India honour the commitments made with the people of Kashmir at the UN,'' Farooq said.
He said, “It is extremely sad that our family members and relatives are being harassed.”
''If this drama is being played to get us, then we are ready to go to jail any time,'' he said at Jamia Masjid, flanked by Malik. ''But we will not be coerced''
He said the people of India are being fed lies and propaganda and each day media trials are being conducted in which "Kashmiri movement is ridiculed, leadership abused and Kashmiris humiliated.”
“Intimidation of our family members, associates, friends, and organisations associated with us is being done by sending them so called notices,'' Farooq said. ''Members of the business community and now press and media fraternity and youth are also being targeted and jailed.”
He said the narrative for the right of self-determination is being projected as a "sponsored from across the border with money being the sole motivation.”
Invoking Article 370 and 35 A, he said the move to abrogate it is aimed at "settling outsiders in J&K in order to change the demography of the state and render Kashmiris powerless and dilute the disputed nature of Kashmir.”
“This move has a direct bearing on our right to self-determination guaranteed by the Indian state at the UN and ratified by the world body itself,”
The NIA has rounded up several second-rung separatists leaders on charges of receiving money to fund unrest in Kashmir. The NIA has detained four associates of Geelani, including his son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Fantoosh. Mirwaiz's aide Aftab Hilali alias Shahidul Islam has also been arrested.
The NIA has also arrested two stone pelters including Kamran Yousuf, a photo-journalist from south Kashmir.
