Officially, homeowners have complained about and protested against the restrictions to movement; former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, insist they were put under house arrest to prevent them from visiting the Mazar-e-Shuhada which marks the Kashmir Martyrs’ Day.
The Peoples Democratic Party president, Mufti, posted pictures of the locked gates on Twitter, stating that ‘ administration seems determined to ensure they (she) cannot visit Mazar-e-Shuhada the memorial of the sacrifice that Kashmir made to resist authoritarianism, oppression and injustice.
Mufti pointed out that the given ‘Kashmir Martyrs’ Day’ held in Kashmir was to show that the spirit of Kashmiris cannot be quashed and that ‘observing it to commemorate martyred protesters was criminalised’.
The Hon’ble Vice President Omar Abdullah of the National Conference also condemned the acts of police barbarity, which was trying to stop people from paying tribute to those who braved their lives so that we could have a just, fair and true democracy in Jammu and Kashmir.
The imprisonment of political leaders, along with the declared measures to avoid their movement and reported attempts to stop the events commemorating Mazar-e-Shuhada, have drawn attention to the continuous political tensions and multifaceted political situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
