SRINAGAR: The civil society actors in Kashmir remained aloof as relatives, second-rung separatist leaders and some university students reiterated their struggle to seek justice for the alleged rape and subsequent murder to Neelofar Shakeel and her sis-in-law Asiya.
The incident that occurred in the intervening night of 29 and 30 May in 2009, had rocked the Valley with Shopian district shutting business for 48 days. It was during this turmoil that the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said he had learnt his life’s important lesson.
Witnesses said the family members of Asiya and Neelogar staged a sit-in near the Zawoora Bridge on the banks of a shallow stream, Rambira Nallah in Shopian. The two women had gone missing from the same area on May 29, 2009. Their bodies were later recovered from the Nallah on May 30, 2009.
Locals in Shopian allege that the two women were kidnapped and the abductors later raped them before killing both in cold blood. The allegation was denied by probe conducted by India’s premier investigating agency Central Bureau of Investigation, saying the women had died due to drowning.
The husband of Neelofar and brother of Asia, Shakeel Ahmad Ahangar, his father in law, brothers and close relatives including children were among a handful of people who gathered near Rambiara and staged a sit-in. They were holding placards that read slogans like Shopian tragedy: Conclusion .! outcome of illegal occupation.
APDP chairperson, Parvena Ahangar, Yasmeen Raja and Mukhtar Ahmad Waza from Hurriyat M also joined the sit in.
However, the Shopian Majlis-e-Mashawrat (SMM) members skipped the sit in. SMM spearheaded the agitation in 2009.
Hurriyat G has called a shutdown in district Shopian on May 30 to commemorate the fifth death anniversary of Asia and Neelofar.
Meanwhile a large gathering of students in Kashmir University staged a demonstration outside Iqbal Library on Thursday and paid homage to Asia and Neelofar on their fifth death anniversary.
An emailed statement from the banned Kashmir University Students’ Union, KUSU, said, “Despite the stiff resistance from the university authorities and police, students gathered in large numbers amidst anti-India and pro-freedom sloganeering. Student speakers from various departments spoke about varying perspectives and experiences of the military occupation. They debated and out-rightly rejected occupational mechanizations of controlling the populace of Kashmir in the ambit of probes, inquiries and judicial commissions.”
Some students also read-out their poetry in remembrance of Asiya & Neelofar Jan, the KUSU statement said. The students, including a large number of girls displayed placards reading slogans like War has just begun we will see through it, Forgetting is a luxury and oppressed cannot afford, “Justice is Freedom”.
“Rape is used as a war weapon by India to demoralize us from fighting the indian tyranny and muzzle the voices of Freedom, the statement quoted one of the students as said one.
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