OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Complete shutdown will be observed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) on Wednesday to mark the 13th July 1931 Kashmir Martyrs’ Day.

Call for the strike is part of the Martyrs’ Week given by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and supported by all pro-freedom organizations in remembrance of the 1931 martyrs.

The people will assemble at Martyrs’ Graveyard at Naqashband Sahib in Srinagar to pay tributes to the martyrs who are buried there.

The APHC leadership in a statement reiterated its appeal for observance of shutdown to commemorate the martyrdom of 22 Kashmiris who were killed within the premises of Central Jail Srinagar by the forces of Dogra ruler on this day in 1931.

These martyrs were part of thousands of people who had assembled outside Central Jail, Srinagar, during the court proceedings against one Abdul Qadeer who had asked people to defy the Dogra rule.

At the time of Namaz-e-Zuhr, a young man started Azaan and was shot dead by the Dogra soldiers. Another took his place and he too was martyred by the troops. Thus, 22 youth sacrificed their lives till the completion of Azaan.

The APHC said that the sacred blood of these martyrs ignited the candle of freedom in Jammu and Kashmir against the tyranny and subjugation of the Dogra rulers.

The leadership urged the OIC Secretary General and the UN chief António Guterres, to save the innocent Kashmiris from trigger-happy Indian forces by resolving the Kashmir dispute in its historical perspective.

Meanwhile, illegally detained senior APHC leader Nayeem Ahmad Khan and other Hurriyat leaders including Abdul Ahad Parra, Firdous Ahmad Shah, Syed Bashir Andrabi, Zamrooda Habib, Yasmeen Raja, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori and APHC-AJK Convener Mehmood Ahmad Saghar in their statements paying glowing tributes to the July 1931 martyrs, said that the unprecedented sacrifices rendered by the people of Kashmir for the freedom cause would not be allowed go waste.

They said: “As per the UN resolutions Pakistan is a key stakeholder in the Kashmir dispute and it is naïve to think that any conflict resolution process can yield results without the proper involvement of key stakeholders”. The leaders said that Kashmir was neither a regional, nor a boundary issue, it was an issue which involves the political future of the Kashmiris.