ISLAMABAD: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leaders including Shabbir Ahmed Shah have said that the Jammu massacre of 1947 is the worst example of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Indian illegally-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Shah paid rich tributes to the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris who were martyred by the forces of Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh, Indian Army and Hindu fanatics in different parts of Jammu region while they were migrating to Pakistan in 1947.
Every year, Kashmiris mark November 6 as the Jammu Martyrs Day to pay tribute to the victims of the Jammu massacre.
Illegally-detained senior APHC leader, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, in a message from New Delhi’s Tihar jail said the Jammu massacre was the most horrible incident of the history of Jammu and Kashmir that continues to haunt the Kashmiris despite the passage of 76 years.
He said that chronology of key events of Kashmir history amply demonstrates the fact that changing of demographic complexion of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir had always been on the cards from day one of the partition of Indian subcontinent. He said Muslims, who made up for more than 60 percent of the Jammu region population, were reduced to a minority after the killing of over two hundred thousand Muslims. He pointed out that stripping IIOJK of its decades-old special status by the Narendra Modi-led government in August 2019 is part of this sinister design to convert Muslim majority of the occupied Kashmir into a minority.
He also expressed serious concern over the continued bloodshed and violence in the occupied valley at the hands of Indian troops. He said it is high time that the global community takes notice of human rights violations and killing of innocent Kashmiris by Indian troops.
Other APHC leaders including Khawaja Firdous, Devinder Singh Behl, Syed Bashir Andrabi, Muhammad Shafi Lone, Abdul Samad Inqilabi,Muhammad Yousuf Naqash and Shafiq-ur-Rehman in their statements said that the Jammu massacre marked the beginning of systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslims. —APP
