MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 9: Expressing condemnation, shock and gloom over the hanging of Afzal Guru by India on Saturday, political and militant leaders and civil society organisations based in Azad Jammu and Kashmir said that such ghastly acts could not deter the Kashmiris from carrying forward their legitimate struggle for freedom.

The AJK government announced a three-day mourning and intra-Kashmir traders declared to suspend their businesses next week.

The Muslim League-Nawaz called for holding demonstrations on Monday to condemn the ‘judicial murder’ of an innocent Kashmiri.

The Pasban-i-Hurriyat, an organisation of Kashmiri refugees, staged a rally during which Indian flag was set on fire.

“Down with India”, “India is a killer state”, shouted emotionally charged demonstrators vociferously as they paraded roads in Muzaffarabad.

“India has again proved its vindictiveness towards the Kashmiris by hanging an innocent Kashmiri on the basis of an unfair and unjust trial,” said Uzair Ghazali of Pasban-i-Hurriyat at the rally. The hanging has also exposed the bias of India’s judiciary, he added.

Mr Ghazali urged the Pakistani government to raise the issue at international forums and review its ties with India.

Other leaders said that Indian spy Sarbajeet Singh, who is in Pakistan custody, should also be hanged.

They called upon the United Nations and international human rights organisations to send their missions to Indian-held Kashmir.

AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed said the hanging showed that India was not sincere in maintaining peace in the region. “I express my sympathies and solidarity with the Kashmiris in general and Mr Guru’s family in particular…we stand by them.”

Leader of opposition and Muslim League-N’s AJK chapter president Raja Farooq Haider said that by hanging Afzal Guru India had made it clear its approach and policy on Kashmir.

“Sarbajeet Singh has confessed to having spied in Pakistan, but he has not been hanged. On the other hand, the Indian government has hanged Mr Guru despite its failure to prove allegations against him,” he said.

Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin asked Pakistan to shun its “apologetic attitude and policy of friendship with India”.

He said every Kashmiri child would become Afzal Guru and fight Indian troops till their eviction from Kashmir.

Jammu and Kashmir People’s Freedom League leader Farooq Rehmani said Mr Guru’s hanging was an unjust, inhuman and barbaric step under India’s biased and revengeful judiciary that always treated Kashmiris unfairly.