JKNF hails steadfastness of incarcerated party chairman Nayeem Khan
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Front (JKNF) has hailed the steadfastness of incarcerated party chairman Nayeem Ahmed Khan, who has completed seven years of illegal detention in India’s notorious Tihar jail.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the JKNF spokesman, Muhammad Haseeb Wani, in a statement issued in Srinagar expressed serious concern over the continued detention of the party chairman. He said Nayeem Khan has been languishing for the past seven years despite the fact the Indian investigation agency has failed to produce substantial evidence against him in the court of law.
Terming his detention as a flagrant violation of the basic human rights, Wani said, “Imprisonment of Nayeem Ahmed Khan and other Kashmiri leaders and activists was part of Modi government’s massive clamp down policy to suppress opponents in the region.”
Hailing the party chairman’s commitment to the Kashmir cause, the spokesman said, “Nayeem Ahmed Khan is creating a history of patience, perseverance and determination in the face of persecution at the hands of Indian rulers.”
“Khan has spent most of his life in different jails and the baseless cases levelled against him have not been proved in any court”, the spokesman said, adding that despite the passage of seven years, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Enforcement Directorate officials could not produce a single-evidence against Khan in the court of law.
“Nayeem Ahmed Khan and other Kashmir leaders, including Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Masarat Alam Butt, Muhammad Yasin Malik and Aasiya Andrabi, were being punished for their indomitable role in the ongoing freedom struggle and their persistent demand for holding referendum in Kashmir”, Wani added.
Reiterating Kashmiris’ pledge to take the ongoing struggle to its logical conclusion, he said, “The Kashmiri people stand firm on their demand for holding a referendum to allow people of the region to decide their political future.” He said that the Indian government’s policy of oppression and suppression could not deter Kashmiris from pursuing their collective cause for which they had been rendering matchless services and sacrifices.
The JKNF spokesman appealed to the United Nations and other international organizations to take effective cognizance of the matter and play its role in the release of all illegally detained Kashmiri prisoners, who were unlawfully arrested by Indian authorities before and after August 2019.
Meanwhile, the spokesman urged the Kashmiri masses to observe 5th August as the day of exploitation. He said that the day would go down in the history of Kashmir as a black day when India’s apartheid regime, in brazen violation of the UNSC resolutions, changed the disputed territory’s special status guaranteed to it under article 370 of the Indian Constitution.