Protests erupt in Bandipora over youth’s custodial killing
APHC condemns ongoing repression, demolitions in IIOJK
Srinagar: Hundreds of people staged a strong protest in Bandipora district of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) against the killing of a Kashmiri youth by Indian troops in a staged encounter.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the troops martyred the youth, Altaf Lali, in a fake encounter in the Kulnar Bazipora area of Bandipora district on Friday. The family of the martyred youth said that Altaf was picked up from his home by Indian police two days prior to the incident.
As news of his Altaf’s killing spread, intense protests broke out in the Ajas area of Bandipora, where his family and locals rejected the Indian forces’ claims, insisting that Altaf was in police custody before being killed in a fake encounter.
Indian troops fired teargas shells and bullets to disperse the protesters, injuring several of them.
Meanwhile, All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) spokesman Abdul Rashid Minhas, in a statement issued in Srinagar, strongly condemned the extrajudicial killing. He said the Indian BJP government is pursuing an imperialist policy to eliminate Kashmiris one by one through fake encounters.
He also denounced the ongoing demolition of homes and other properties across IIOJK, calling it part of a wider Hindutva-driven agenda led by the Narendra Modi regime to displace and dispossess Kashmiris, and alter the Muslim-majority demographic character of the territory.
The APHC spokesman further said that arresting and detaining Kashmiris in jails, and granting domiciles to non-Kashmiris, are deliberate steps to transform IIOJK into a Hindu state under BJP’s settler-colonial policy.
