Oppressed Kashmiris celebrating Eidul Azha under siege of Indian troops

SRINAGAR (KMS) – In Occupied Kashmir, Eidul Azha celebrations were a low-key affair as most of the faithful marked the festival of sacrifice by mostly offering prayers at home while major mosques and shrines remained closed as authorities had imposed strict restrictions in most parts of the territory. Indian troops and police personnel were deployed in every nook and corner of the territory and concertina wires and barricades were placed at many intersections in Srinagar city and other districts of the territory to prevent people to offer Eid prayers and hold anti-India demonstrations. According to reports, the Kashmiri people, by and large, preferred to offer Eid prayers at home, either individually or in small groups consisting of family members only. Police personnel made announcements early in the morning, asking the people not to congregate for Eid prayers. Pertinently, Indian occupation troops had been perpetrating serious human rights violations in the occupied territory for the past over seven decades to subjugate the Kashmiris. Indian troops’ brutalities has witnessed unprecedented surge after the RSS-backed fascist Indian government illegally abrogated the territory’s special status and split it into two union territories on August 5 last year. Killings, arrests and torture by the Indian troops have become a daily affair in Occupied Kashmir and people are even targeted inside their homes during house-to-house searches carried out on daily basis even during the coronavirus pandemic. Just in the past month of July, the troops martyred 24 Kashmiris, injured at least 59 persons, arrested 98 people including top Hurriyat leaders, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, Farooq Ahmad Tawheedi and Ameer Hamza, and molested seven women 450 cordon and search operations carried out in different areas of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Besides, 11 residential houses and other structures were destroyed and several homes looted during the month. The Kashmiri people, despite facing innumerable atrocities, are determined to carry on their freedom struggle till their motherland is freed from Indian yoke.