Sanctions, banning political parties can’t stop Kashmiris from pursing cherished goal: Shakeel Andrabi

SRINAGAR, Oct 18 (SABAH):  Students wing of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) on Wednesday reiterated its pledge to carry forward the mission of the incarcerated party chairman Shabir Ahmed Shah despite all odds.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday the DFP’s student wing Chief Shakeel Ahmed Andrabi said that no sanctions or restrictive measures against political organizations and leaders by the Indian government can deter them from pursing their cherished goal of freedom for which Kashmiris have rendered unprecedented sacrifices for the past several decades. Andrabi said that India must bear in mind the fact that it cannot suppress the Kashmiris’ just struggle for the right of self-determination merely by silencing legitimate political voices in Kashmir.

He said that Indian needs to learn from the history that genuine freedom movements with a massive support base cannot be suppressed through use of excessive force or putting people in jails. 

The age-old colonial-era tactics used by Indian rulers to silence the Kashmiri people have neither succeeded in the past nor would they succeed in future”, Andrabi said and added that India must accept the ground reality that Kashmir is a political dispute that needs to be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.

Urging India to adopt a pragmatic approach to resolve the lingering dispute peacefully, he said that by creating war hysteria India cannot change the reality of the Kashmir dispute.

Reiterating Kashmiris’ pledge to take the ongoing freedom struggle to its logical conclusion, Andrabi said that followers of Shabir Ahmed Shah would never allow any one to betray the Kashmiris’ just cause.

Andrabi also lauded Shah’s life long struggle and sacrifices for the ongoing freedom struggle and expressed the optimism that the day was not far when the people of Kashmir would achieve their cherished goal of freedom from India’s occupation.