Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday paid tribute to Kashmiris on Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Martyrs Day) for their continued “struggle against the illegal and barbaric Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir.”
In a tweet, the Pakistan premier referred to the 22 Kashmiris who were martyred 89 years ago during a protest against the autocratic rule of a Hindu Maharaja in the Muslim majority state as the “forefathers of today’s Kashmiri resistance”.
“Their descendants have, generation after generation, laid down their lives for freedom and today they continue to valiantly fight & defy a Hindutva Supremacist regime bent on demographic engineering to wipe out the Kashmiri people & their identity,” Mr. Khan tweeted.
He said Pakistan had always stood with the Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination and would continue to stand with them in their “just struggle” till the Indian-occupied valley is free from illegal occupation, adding that the day was “not far”.
It was on 13 July 1931, when tens of hundreds of Kashmiris had gathered outside the premises of Central Jail in Srinagar where Abdul Qadeer, a resident of British India, was being tried on the charge of sedition, for inciting Kashmiris against the Dogra ruler at a gathering in Khanqah-i-Muallah on 21 June, the same year.
At the time of midday prayer, one of the crowd members stood to make a call to prayer and was shot dead by the police. He was succeeded by another member who met the same fate. In all, 22 men rose to complete the call to prayer and all were shot dead.
