MUZAFFARABD, Feb 10: Activists of the Jammu Kashmir National Awami Party (JKNAP) and National Students Federation, the hard-line organisations advocating complete independence of Kashmir, held a motorcycle rally here on Monday in connection with the 19th death anniversary of Maqbool Butt, which falls on Tuesday.

The rally, led by NSF president Shujaat Kazmi and JKNAP central leaders Prof Latif Khaleeq and Shaukat Ganai Advocate, was taken out from the old campus of the AJK University and it took round of almost all parts of the city. A good number of motorcycles and vehicles took part in it.

The participants, most of whom were wearing red bands around their heads and carrying big red party flags, chanted slogans in support of an independent state of Kashmir.

The two organisations would also hold a joint public meeting at Upper Adda on Tuesday to mark the death anniversary of the great Kashmiri leader, who is regarded as pioneer of the ongoing freedom struggle in held Kashmir.

Activists of the Amanullah Khan-led faction of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front also brought out a procession on Monday, chanting pro-independence and anti-division (of Kashmir) slogans.

At the conclusion of the procession, the local leaders of the group, including Khwaja Saifuddin, Zahid Habib Shaikh and others, paid tributes to Mr Butt and dismissed “the shameful efforts” by India and Pakistan aimed at conversion of the Line of Control into a permanent border.

The leaders also warned all those “so-called leaders” in both parts of Kashmir who they alleged were engaged in hatching conspiracies against the unity and integrity of Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Kashmir’s dominant fighter group, Hizbul Mujahideen, on Monday paid glowing tributes to Maqbool Butt and said it was following his course of action to win freedom of Kashmir.

“The freedom fighters in general and the Hizbul Mujahideen in particular are following the course set by Shaheed Maqbool Butt for the liberation of Kashmir from Indian yoke,” Hizb spokesman Salim Hashmi said in a message on the eve of Mr Butt’s death anniversary.

“Jihad is the only way to end the prolonged occupation of Kashmir by India, and the Kashmiris will carry it on until they achieve the goal of freedom,” Mr Hashmi said.

He said the martyrdom of Mr Butt in 1984 testified to the fact that the Kashmiris themselves had been waging a war against the illegal Indian rule in Kashmir since long.

Mr Butt was hanged by the Indian government in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on Feb 11, 1984.