The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has called for a shutdown on 13 July in the remembrance of 13 July 1931 martyrs.
The pro freedom organisation said that due to the COVID-19 protocol being in place for the safety of the people, “and due to the continued house arrest of it’s chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who cannot visit the martyr’s graveyard, the rally stands suspended, but people are requested to visit the graveyard individually and offer fathiha for these martyrs and all the martyrs, and observe a complete strike”.
APHC said that “13 July 1931 was the turning point in the contemporary history of Kashmir, when twenty two Kashmiris killed in cold blood by the ruler of the day became its first martyrs and led to the launch of a political agitation by the people of Kashmir for their political and economic unshackling”.
The organisation in its statement added: “To this day people of Kashmir – generation after generation, are struggling for the realisation of that aspiration, having lost tens of thousands of lives since and being devastated by a conflict over the land.”
APHC said that the “people of Kashmir have always honoured these martyrs on this day and commemorated it as the martyrs day by holding rallies at the martyrs graveyard to pay tributes to them and observed a protest strike in their memory”.
APHC stated that the “people of Kashmir and leaders will continue their peaceful political struggle for the realisation of the mission for which these martyrs laid down their lives and that is the best tribute to them”.
