*Demands release of jailed leaders
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 23: National Conference (NC) today held first workers meetings since August 5 and demanded release of their leaders.
The NC demanded that the political leaders must be set free in order to initiate a political process that has witnessed a grinding halt in J&K.
Speaking to the reporters on the sidelines of the meeting of workers from Kashmir division at party headquarters, NC’s Provincial Secretary Mir Showkat said that the agenda of the meeting was to press for the unconditional release of party leaders.
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Putting the party leaders behind bars has got no justification, Mir said, adding it was a brazen violation of democratic values of the country. “They (the leaders) should be released immediately so that the political process that has witnessed a grinding halt resumes,” he said.
He said that the continuous detention of political leaders while having an impact on the ground has also created an atmosphere of fear among the people of J&K. “There is a scare and a kind of fear looming large in J&K. The detention of political leaders does have an impact on the ground. It is something which can go away only after the leaders are released and are allowed to carry on with the political process,” he said.
“The administration has put everybody behind bars and is only allowing BJP to conduct meetings. There is no direction. Once the leaders are out they will tell the people how to go about things,” he said.
He also said that BJP was ‘nobody’ to decide on when and how the elections are going to be held. “They are repeatedly saying that first there will be delimitation and only after that the elections will be conducted. It is the prerogative of Election Commission of India to decide anything related to elections in J&K,” he said.
Commenting on the slew of new laws being implemented, he said that with their implementation demographic change was inevitable. “…Demographic changes are inevitable in J&K because you have abrogated Article 370 as well as Article 35-A, and at the same time, you have NRC and CAA. All these things do have implications, though not spontaneous,” he said.
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