RAWALPINDI, Feb 10: Protests were witnessed in the garrison city, a day after the announcement that India had secretly hanged Afzal Guru – the Kashmiri leader allegedly involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001— in Tihar Jail.
Banned outfit Jamaatud Dawa participated in the protest.
Difa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC) led religious parties, including Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamaatud Dawa, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Ansarul Ummat, Tehrik Hurmaat-i-Rasul and others, participated in the protest.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Maulana Samiul Haq, General (retired) Hameed Gul, Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil, Maulana Abdur Rehman Maki, Maulana Abdur Rauf Farooqi, Mian Mohammad Aslam, Maulana Amir Hamza, Shamsur Rehman Mawia and Saifur Rehman Darkhawasti were prominent among the religious leaders present in the protest.
Jamaatud Dawa’s Hafiz Mohammad Saeed led the funeral prayer in absentia for Dr Afzal Guru at Marrir Chowk. More than 400 people joined the protest.
The participants were chanting slogans “Tera Nagar Mera Nagar Srinagar Srinagar (Srinagar is our city),” and “Afzal Guru say Rishta Kia La illah ila Allah” and “Hafiz Saeed say Rishta Kia La illah ila Allah.”
The protestors also demanded of the government to overturn the pardon of Indian prisoner Sarbajeet Singh and to give death sentence to all the terrorists and secret agents in Pakistani jails.
While addressing the gathering, Jamaatud Dawa Hafiz Mohammad Saeed claimed that India killed Dr Afzal Guru for political gains, otherwise the Kashmiri leader was innocent and he had no links to the Indian Parliament attacks.
“Afzal Guru and other Muslims were hanged in India for the satisfaction of Indian government’s conscience. The double standards of Indian Supreme Court were exposed while giving this verdict, as on the one hand Gujrat’s former chief minister Narendra Modi is free despite his direct involvement in Godhra incident and now he was also planning to contest the elections for Indian Prime Minister in the forthcoming general elections,” he said.
“The basic aim to martyr the Kashmiri leader was to suppress the Kashmir movement but India forgets that the Kashmir movement gained momentum, after the hanging of the great Kashmiri leader Maqbool Butt,” he said.
“It is a slap on the face of democratic forces and international human rights organisations but Kashmiris will not surrender their movement for this cowardly act of Indian authorities,” he said.
On the other hand, DPC chairman Maulana Samiul Haq said:” We don’t want war with India but if forced upon us, we will fight. All the religious and political forces supported the Kashmir movement and we will fight to retrieve Kashmir from the clutches of India”.
“India will soon break into many parts like Soviet Union. The blood of martyrs will not go in waste,” he said.
He condemned the death sentence of Afzal Guru by Indian Courts and said that the Pakistani government was busy in looting money and making bomb proof houses and it had no time to speak and work for the rights of Pakistanis and Kashmiris.
While former DG ISI General (retired) Hameed Gul said that Afzal Guru had been kept in detention in Indian jails for the last 11 years but nothing had been proven against him.
“The sentence is a slap on the face of international human rights organisation,” he said.
“The federal government is improving trade of potato and onions with India and forget to raise the voice of Kashmiri leaders who wanted to complete Pakistan,” said Gul.
?Other speakers also condemned the death sentence of Afzal Guru and declared him innocent and urged the government to take action against Indian prisoners in Pakistan, who were involved in terrorist activities.