Islamabad, February 11, 2022 (PPI-OT):The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) on martyrdom anniversary of prominent martyred liberation leader Muhammad Maqbool Butt has urged the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to impress upon the Indian government to return his mortal remains to the people of Kashmir for proper burial.

The JKLF leaders, including Muhammad Rafiq Dar, Sardar Jamshed Khan and Sardar Tanveer Aziz, submitted a memorandum to the UN office in Islamabad. The memorandum addressed to the UN chief said that today, people in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir are observing the day with complete shutdown while as people in Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan and Kashmiri communities worldwide especially in Britain, Europe and North America are holding protest demonstrations against India.

It said 38 years ago, on this day the then Indian government ordered the judicial murder of Maqbool Butt. His body remains buried in a corner of the notorious Tihar jail in India where he was executed on 11th February, 1984. Despite repeated demands from his family and the people of Jammu and Kashmir – commonly referred to as Kashmir – India refuses to hand over his mortal remains, it said, adding an empty grave awaits his remains in the martyrs’ graveyard in Srinagar.

The memorandum said Maqbool Butt epitomises the spirit of resistance against subjugation and the unshakeable belief in his people’s inalienable and inherent sovereign right to be masters of their political destiny. Maqbool Butt, it said, has gained the love, adoration and the gratitude of his nation for the supreme sacrifice he made, resulting from India’s neo-colonialism and arrogance in Kashmir. India refuses to release Maqbool Butt’s mortal remains, and those of Afzal Guru who was another innocent victim of India’s neo-colonialism and arrogance and was hanged on 9th February, 2013 in a fabricated case. Afzal Guru, like Maqbool Butt, is also buried in the premises of Tihar Jail.

It said for centuries people of Kashmir have struggled to regain freedom and sovereignty. The struggle has been to re-assert sovereignty, territorial integrity, and to maintain the religious, social and cultural heritage, peculiar to the peoples of all the regions of the forcibly divided state. At the heart of this struggle is the firm desire by Kashmiris to be masters of destiny in their own country, it maintained.

The memorandum reminded that currently ultra-religious chauvinist Modi Government of India, has embarked upon crushing Kashmiris’ quest to be free, with all means at its disposal. Maqbool Butt’s ideology of standing up for their inherent and inalienable rights however, has ensured that Kashmiris will not be deterred from their goal of freedom and independence.

The memorandum said if presence of 900,000 Indian forces was not enough to maintain its illegal neo-colonial occupation in Kashmir, Modi Government deprived the people in Kashmir even of the remnants of autonomy. It said Modi regime abrogated articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution unilaterally, ending Kashmir’s autonomous status and depriving the people of their fundamental political rights.

And in defiance of UN Charter and the Resolutions India illegally annexed and disintegrated the internationally disputed territory on 5 August 2019. Since then India rules the bifurcated state illegally as two union territories (UTS) directly from New Delhi.

It said with massive military and paramilitary troops added since 5 August 2019, India has laid siege to the entire greater valley of Kashmir and other parts of the territory. Since 22nd February, 2019, Yasin Malik, Chairman of the JKLF and follower of Maqbool Butt’s political ideology, is illegally incarcerated at the notorious Tihar jail. On 22nd March, 2019 the JKLF was banned as part of Modi Government’s vindictive ‘all out policy’ to stifle and throttle peaceful political dissent spearheaded by the JKLF in Kashmir, it added.

The memorandum said, more so over, despite ceasefire on ceasefire line, Indian Army blatantly in broad day light on 25th November, 2021 between 3 pm to 4pm abducted a teenaged orphan boy Abdul Samad, a class 9th student, while he was playing with other friends exactly at Chakkah Da Bagh near Tetrinote, Poonch, AJK. The boy is still in their captivity and his grandfather is waiting for his release for which he has filed a complaint with local authorities.

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