Geelani to organize 'Million March' to counter PM Modi's Srinagar rally

Srinagar: Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has announced a ‘Million March’ to be held in Jammu and Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar on November 7 apparently to counter the planned joint rally of ruling PDP-BJP coalition which is scheduled to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the same day.

This would be a deviation from the separatists’ tested manoeuvre of calling shutdowns during the visits of the Prime Minister and other important central government leaders which they would often indulge in. The practice has come under severe criticism by their opponents and some supporters alike with the latter asking the leadership to look for alternatives.

The Hurriyat Conference faction led by Mr. Geelani said on Thursday that the proposed ‘Million March’ would culminate into a public rally at the City’s TRC grounds which is located less than 300 yards from Amar Singh Club grounds where the PDP-BJP rally is likely to take place.

The octogenarian leader said he would invite all other prominent separatist leaders including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik to the proposed rally in a display of unity. It would be aimed also at showing the outside world that “Kashmiris are against Indian occupation,” an amalgam spokesperson said.

He added that the organisers of the proposed rally would seek permission for it from the concerned authorities and will take the responsibility towards maintaining law and order in the City.

“We will also assure the administration that those who want to attend Modi’s rally will not be stopped or hindered. We will send a formal letter to Srinagar’s district magistrate also to say that the Million March will be peaceful and a disciplined demonstration which will nether create any law and order problem or any traffic snarl,” the spokesperson Ayaz Akbar said.

A statement issued by the Geelani-led Hurriyat Conference added that more than one million people are expected to join its ‘Million March’ and that it will be “a clear referendum that the people of Kashmir are with the freedom movement or they have changed with the time”.

Mr. Geelani and other prominent invitees would address the rally “to reaffirm our resolve to carry forward the freedom struggle in every way and at every cost till the goal is achieved”, it said.

It further said, “both the public rallies will decide how many people are with India and how many support the freedom struggle,” adding the Hurriyat Conference wants to give a peaceful message through this march to the world and also to Prime Minister Modi that the ‘freedom struggle of Kashmiris is neither terrorism nor a communal movement but they are spearheading a just and genuine struggle for their birth and basic rights”

The statement said that Mr. Modi should understand that Kashmiris “are not warmongers but a peace-loving nation which only wants that the rulers of India should fulfill those promises which they have made to them at national as well as international levels that they would be given a chance to decide their future and that they will be free to choose their destiny.”

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to put the biannual office shift called ‘Darbar Move’ from summer capital Srinagar to winter capital Jammu partially on hold in view of the Prime Minister’s visit.

The civil secretariat and other move office here are scheduled to close on October 30 and reopen in Jammu on November 9.

The State government on Thursday ordered that nine important departments would setup camp offices in Civil Secretariat Srinagar to coordinate the arrangements for the visit of the Prime Minister.

The offices of department of Agriculture Production, Health and Medical Education, Home, Industries and Commerce, Relief and Rehabilitation, Revenue, Power Development, Public Works, Public Health Engineering and Irrigation and Flood Control will remain operational in Srinagar between November 2 and 7, it said.

Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the Baglihar-II hydroelectric project on Chenab river near Ramban in Jammu region and would later fly to Srinagar to address the proposed rally.

He is also expected to announce a slew of measure for the economic uplift of the State’s weaker sections and also a handsome package for the displaced Kashmiri Pandits during his visit.