Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah climbed over the boundary wall of the Mazar-e-Shuhada graveyard in Srinagar on Monday after alleging that security forces had blocked his visit for two days in a row.
55-year-old Omar said that he was placed under house arrest on July 13, observed as Martyrs’ Day in the Valley. On Monday (July 14), he attempted once again to pay respects to the martyrs of the 1931 Kashmir agitation. However, he was allegedly stopped again. In a video now going viral, he is seen climbing and scaling the graveyard wall, bypassing security barricades.
In a video shared by ANI, he is saying, “It is unfortunate that by the orders of those who claim their responsibility is to maintain law and order, we were not allowed to recite the Fatiha yesterday. Everyone was house-arrested since the morning. When I told the control room that I wanted to come here to recite Fatiha, bunkers were installed outside my house within minutes. And they remained there till 12-1 am(sic.)”
He went on to add that on Monday, he went to the memorial without informing anyone. “Today, too, they tried to stop us… I want to know under which law I was stopped… They say that this is a free country, but they think that we are their slaves. We are nobody’s slaves. We are only the slaves of the people here… We foiled their attempts… They tried to tear our flag. But we came here and recited the Fatiha. They forget that these graves will always remain here. (sic)” he added.
CM Abdullah accused the administration of attempting to erase the memory of the 1931 martyrs and suppress public tributes. “They stopped us on July 13, but for how long can they continue to do so? We will come here whenever we want and remember the martyrs…”
He also slammed the local media for downplaying the detention of elected leaders. “Shame on the sellouts who buried the story. I hope the size of the envelope was worth it,” he posted on X.
Martyrs’ Day, which was once an official holiday in Jammu and Kashmir, was removed from the list of public holidays after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
