Carry on with stir, ‘stakeholders’ tell separatists at marathon meet

carry-on-with-stir-stakeholders-tell-separatists-at-marathon-meetA daylong marathon meeting between several hundred representatives of trade bodies, educational associations, religious organisations and separatist leaders concluded on Tuesday evening with most of them insisting on continuing the agitation.
The meeting was held at the residence of senior separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and attended by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik. The three separatists are steering the ongoing unrest by issuing weekly protest calendars scheduling protests, shutdowns and work hours.
The representatives, including members of trade bodies, educational associations, hotelier groups, religious organisations and civil society members – bracketed as “stakeholders” —- expressed their opinion about the future of the unrest, which is now in its fifth month.
The unrest, sparked by the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani on July 8, is now reduced to a daily shutdown while protest demonstrations and rallies have almost ended across all districts.
The separatist leaders, according to those who attended the marathon meeting today, in their concluding remarks said the “issues of transporters and exams of students” would be considered while drafting the upcoming protest-shutdown calendars.
Several people who attended the meeting told Kashmir Post that there was a consensus on continuing the agitation.
“Most of the people spoke in favour of continuing it. No one said that it should be called off,” said Farooq Ahmad, a member of a traders association.
Ubaid Ahmad, a member of the Federation of Industries who attended the meeting, said: “Everybody said there should be no leniency. They also said that relaxation of shutdown should be for a full day and not on hourly basis.”
One speaker also told the separatists that “when we were not consulted at the time of launching the agitation, why are we being consulted now? Is it an attempt to bell the cat?”
Outside the meeting’s venue, a crowd of protesters had gathering since early morning and shouted slogans demands continuation of the agitation. A young man, who had travelled several kilometres from the city’s Soura locality, said he was against any relaxation in the unrest. “My opinion is that there should be relaxation only once in a week,” he said.
In the afternoon, Yasin Malik came out of the meeting to talk to the protesting crowd and told them that “70 per cent of the people have spoken so far and no one has talked of calling it off”.
The three separatist leaders, who had called the meeting, in a joint statement issued later in the evening said the stakeholders had given them a “full mandate” to continue the agitation.
“All speakers and representatives were unanimous that continuing the movement with vigour is a duty of every Kashmiri,” read the joint statement issued by Geelani, Mirwaiz and Malik.

Related posts