April 30, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1427

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MUZAFFARABAD, April 29: Activists of the hard-line Jammu and Kashmir National Students Federation (JKNSF) took out a rally here on Saturday and marched barefooted to voice their demands.

The pro-independence activists also crawled on the metalled road during their 1.5-kilometre march defying the sizzling heat to register their protest.

Motorists and pedestrians gawked at the bare-footed youngsters, who were chanting “No to India. No to Pakistan. We want free Kashmir”.

The protestors called upon the Indian and Pakistani troops to quit the region to pave the way for the emergence of a sovereign state. Holding red party flags, the JKNSF activist were also carrying two banners, one of which read: ‘Pakistan’s Special Communication Organisation and the Water and Power Development Authority should refrain from sucking the blood of Kashmiri survivors,” the other called for withdrawal of utility bills.

The other one demanded release of six NSF activists including group’s central chairman Ishtiaq Gull who were booked for torching the copies of national identity cards in the southern Poonch district at a rally on Feb. 11.

NSF opposes issuance of Pakistani ID cards to the subjects of Jammu and Kashmir State and has staged a series of demonstrations against it in the past.

“By burning the ID cards we did not express detestation against Pakistan but we had sought a separate identity of the Kashmiris. If it’s a crime we will continue to commit it again and again”, said NSF president Mahmood Baig.

He said another purpose of the march was to press the SCO and the Wapda to withdraw the bills they had issued to penniless survivors.

Prominent among other NSF leaders who spoke on the occasion were Raja Saba and Zulfiqar Baig.

A large number of police were deployed to prevent marchers from going beyond a certain point near the confluence of rivers Neelum and Jhelum as the deputy chairman Erra Lt-Gen Nadeem Ahmed was addressing a gathering there.

However, the NSF activists did not create any trouble for them on Saturday and dispersed peacefully after delivering speeches near Quaid-i-Azam Bridge.