Kashmiris worldwide to observe October 27 as Black Day: APHC
Srinagar: All Parties Hurriyat Conference has described October 27 as the worst tragedy and darkest day in the painful history of Kashmir and urged Kashmiris worldwide to observe the date as a day of protest to highlight their unwavering resistance against Indian occupation.
According to Kashmir Media Service, in a special message issued from Srinagar, APHC vice chairman Gulam Ahmed Gulzar said the darkness of October 27 has persisted for 78 years and that Kashmiris will never accept the illegal occupation and will continue to this day as black day till they get freedom from Indian slavery. He called on people across Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan and the Kashmiri diaspora to mark the day with rallies, demonstrations and other programmes to draw international attention to the longest unresolved issue under the UN Charter.
Gulzar asked protestors abroad to impress upon the international community to play its role in resolving the Kashmir dispute and to demand an end to ongoing human rights abuses by Indian troops in the occupied territory.
While narrating the nightmarish ordeal of oppressed Kashmiris under Indian occupation, Gulzar specifically highlighting the past 36 years of systematic genocide by over a million trigger-happy Indian occupation forces. These forces, Gulzar said, have turned Kashmir into an open-air prison where violence and torture are state-sponsored tools of oppression. He said that nearly one lac Kashmiris have been killed since 1989, regardless of age or gender, and thousands more have been tortured and mutilated by Indian forces.
“Thousands have been subjected to brutal and humiliating torture,” he said. “Over 10,000 Kashmiris have disappeared during custody, and many political leaders, human rights activists, and journalists continue to suffer in Indian jails under false charges,” Gulzar added.
Gulzar condemned the use of pellet guns and other deadly weapons on civilians, leading to the blinding of hundreds of Kashmiris since 1989. He also said that economic sabotage — including the destruction of houses and shops — was being used to paralyze Kashmiris economically.
Highlighting another horrific aspect of the ongoing brutalities, Gulzar said Indian forces were using sexual violence as a weapon of war to humiliate and intimidate Kashmiris, especially women. He said, “Indian devil forces have raped over 13,000 Kashmiri women since 1989”, and asserted that more than 40,000 women have been widowed and over 100,000 children orphaned as a result of Indian state terrorism during the past 36 years.
Gulzar sharply criticized the Indian government’s actions on August 5, 2019, when it revoked the special status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He described the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35A as the worst attack on Kashmiris’ unique Muslim identity, culture, and natural resources. He said that the RSS and BJP were pursuing a colonial agenda in Kashmir, with the goal of changing IIOJK’s demographic landscape.
“The Modi regime has effectively opened the door for non-local Hindus to settle in Kashmir by issuing domiciles, thus altering the region’s demography,” he said. Gulzar said that the ruling BJP regime under Narendra Modi was pursuing a strategy colonization and using state institutions — including the army, administration and probe agencies — to force Kashmiris into submission. Gulzar said that India was following the Israeli model of settler-colonialism, and warned that the systematic settlement of non-Kashmiri Hindus in the territory was designed to dispossess the indigenous Kashmiri Muslims of their land and rights. “This is an attempt to force Kashmiris into extinction, removing them from their own land,” he said.
Gulzar expressed his grave concerns about the existential threat Kashmiris face due to the state-backed Hindutva ideology in India. He stressed that the Modi regime’s actions were aimed at annihilating the Kashmiri Muslim community and imposing Hindutva culture in the region, all while seizing their resources and disempowering them politically and economically.
He called on the international community to intervene and halt the Hindutva-driven aggression in Kashmir, warning that the ongoing conflict could lead to the total annihilation of Kashmiri identity, life, and honor. Gulzar emphasized that Kashmiris will never bow down to Indian tyranny, vowing that the freedom struggle will continue despite all odds.
Concluding his message, Gulzar paid rich tributes to the martyrs of Kashmir’s freedom movement, reaffirming that their mission would be fulfilled, at every cost. He appealed to the world to take urgent action to stop the Hindutva terrorism and save Kashmiris from total destruction.
