Kotli: JKLF protest against Azad Kashmir, AJK elections and conspiracies to divide Jammu and Kashmir

(JKLF protest against AJK elections in Koti, Pakistan-administrated J&K)

According to details, workers of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Students Liberation Front City Kotli staged a massive protest against the upcoming elections in Azad Kashmir, calling them undemocratic and anti-state. The protest started from Shaheed Chowk Kotli and returned to Shaheed Chowk after touring various bazaars of the city. Participants of the protest said that fake elections were not allowed, fraud was not allowed, Pakistan’s accession was not allowed, puppet elections were not allowed, partition of Jammu and Kashmir was not allowed, leave the foreign occupied state, release Yasin Malik and arrest the killers of Dr. Ghulam Abbas. Do what we want. Independence and Jammu and Kashmir will become independent. Protesters also carried placards and banners with slogans against the withdrawal of India and Pakistan from the state and the election under the controversial and undemocratic clause of Pakistan’s accession. Addressing the protesters at Shaheed Chowk Kotli, Dr Tauqeer Gilani, zonal president of the Liberation Front, termed the Azad Kashmir Assembly elections as undemocratic, illegal and a selection of pro-Pakistan puppets. Dr. Tauqeer Gilani said that the Liberation Front is a busy struggle for the basic democratic right of the people of the state, the right to self-determination. The Liberation Front is not opposed to democracy and democratic process but the occupying governments of Pakistan and India in all parts of the divided state are merely pretending to hold elections for the selection of their puppets to perpetuate the partition state plan and their own illegitimate occupation.

They said that it was only the choice of pro-Pakistan parties and agencies backed by state traitors and looting groups who had no ideology, no manifesto, no party but the same group changing leases every time to the people. Divided into tribes, clans, regions and sects, it is engaged in plundering the resources of the state. “The Liberation Front cannot be part of any illegitimate, illegal, undemocratic, anti-people and anti-state action and we demand that India and Pakistan withdraw their forces from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, illegal occupation and End colonialism and restore the right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to their right to freedom. Dr. Tauqeer Gilani sharply criticized the Kotli administration and said that the Kotli administration has failed miserably in performing its duties throughout the district and especially in the city of Kotli. District officers are receiving salaries sitting in their air-conditioned offices while the entire district and especially the city of Kotli has been handed over to the occupation mafia, stone-throwers, public property, sidewalks and squares. 

The city of Kotli is full of encroachments and the officials and administrators of Kotli Municipality are constantly engaged in extortion and bribery while foreign suspects and informants are roaming in the markets, squares and alleys of Kotli. Dr Tauqeer Gilani strongly condemned the killing of Dr Ghulam Abbas Rathore, who was brutally murdered in the dark of night in Kotli two days ago and demanded immediate arrest of the killers. He said that a dirty propaganda was carried out in the city before the assassination of Dr. Abbas and despite repeated warnings by Dr. Abbas to the police, no attempt was made to stop the tragic accident which led to a conscious, lover. The homeland and the son of the city were killed in the darkness of night. He said that if the killers of Dr Ghulam Abbas Rathore were not arrested then the Liberation Front would be forced to go on strike in Shaheed Chowk Kotli against this atrocity. The protest was addressed by Zubair Qureshi, District General Secretary, Liberation Front, Ambassador Kashmiri, Aizaz Gilani and others, who had recently spent four months in jail for demanding unity and independence of the state.