Be united to achieve freedom

TAHIR SAYEED
Srinagar, Mar 30: Senior leader of Hurriyat Conference (M), Shabir Ahmad Shah, on Sunday asserted that unity among various pro-freedom leaders was essential to achieve freedom.Shah was speaking at a seminar titled ‘Itehaad Aur Tehreek-e-Azadi Jammu and Kashmir' organized by Idariya Sout-ul-Haq, Jammu and Kashmir here at a hotel.“We are fighting on different fronts, but our basic aim of achieving freedom is same. So the need of the hour is to get united to fight on a common front,” Shah said.He said that different conspiracies were being hatched against the people of Kashmir. “One such conspiracy is that of renaming tulip garden after Indira Gandhi,” Shah said. “She might have been a great leader for India. But for us, she is the lady who belongs to an occupying power.”Shah welcomed the recent statement by Pakistan Prime Minister, Syed Raza Gillani, that Kashmir issue should be solved as per the United Nations resolutions. “For the past 60 years, Pakistan has been supporting us politically, diplomatically and morally. We appreciate its stand on Kashmir,” he said.Shah said it was India's figment of imagination that the freedom struggle has died in the valley. “The freedom sentiment is still alive in people,” he said.Chairman of Islamic Students League , Shakeel Bakshi, however criticized Shabir Shah on his views about unity among leaders. “The unity slogan is misleading. And it is in the name of this unity that Kashmir's freedom struggle got weakened,” he said.Bakshi analysed the political scenario in Kashmir from 1970. “First Peoples League was broken. Then Muslim United Front met the same fate. This was followed by Tehreek-e-Hurriyat which did not last longer. And finally, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference saw the same end,” he said