SRINAGAR: With Delhi Police arresting JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar after booking him under sedition and criminal conspiracy case for pro parliament attack convict Afzal Guru event in the university campus on February 9, the Kashmiri separatist leaders have demanded his release with hardliner Syed Ali Geelani warning of consequences if Kumar was not released.
Geelani, who is presently camping in national capital, condemned the arrest of Kanihiya Kumar and registration of sedition charges against SAR Gealani and some other students.
“The government action is totally against democratic claims of India and against the freedom of expression. It has no constitutional and legal justification,” he said adding the JNU students held a peaceful demonstration to express their solidarity with the Kashmiri nation and it is not any crime.
The hardline separatist leader said many prominent Indian leaders and human rights activists had raised questions over the secret hanging of Afzal Guru and had termed it as a judicial murder.
Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was secretly hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail on February 9, 2013.
“If JNU students also express their concern on his hanging, then how can it be termed as a crime,” Geelani said.
Terming detention of JNU student’s union president and slapping of sedition against him as “completely grave injustice” with him, the hardline separatist leader demanded his immediate release.
“This action will have serious consequences and its responsibility will be on the Indian government,” warned Geelani.
The moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is also presently camping in New Delhi, said the police action on the JNU students was “undemocratic” and “reflection of negative policies of the people who claim to be saviors of the freedom of speech.”
Terming the police reaction as uncalled for, he said the organizers were in no way involved in any illegal activity.
The woman separatist leader and chairperson of Dukhtaran-e-Millat Asiya Andrabi termed the student leaders arrest as highly condemnable.
“On one hand India claims to be the largest democracy of the world and on the other hand curbs the freedom of expression and wants to stop everybody from speaking truth,” she said.
Andrabi claimed that more people are raising their voice in India and asking the government why it was holding Kashmiris captive on gun point.
“By stopping people from speaking truth doesn’t change the facts in favour of India and instead it exposes the Indian arrogance further,” she further claimed.