Politics

With protesters dressed up as beaten cops, Legislator Rasheed leads protest in support of Police

Rasheed leads march in solidarity with the police beaten by the army, gets detained. 

Srinagar: Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) organized a first of its kind drill in Lal Chowk, in which protesters dressed as policemen paraded with artificial injuries. The act symbolised the helplessness of the police, who were beaten up by the army on 22nd July at Ganderbal.

Six policemen, including an Assistant Sub-Inspector, were injured after army men had thrashed them, and ransacked the police station, for allegedly stopping their vehicle at a check-post in Gund area of Ganderbal district.

The mock protest was accompanied by a march lead by Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Langate and Patron of AIP Er. Rasheed, in which the participants pledged to never use force against their own people after they were beaten up by outsiders.

The mock protest was joined by dozens of Rasheed’s colleagues, among whom two youth were dressed in police uniforms, who faked injuries on their heads and arms.

The protesters marched from Sher-I-Kashmir Park to the city center at Lal Chowk. The boys dressed as policemen were holding banners that read “Our Uniform Could Not Save Us” and “We take oath never to commit atrocities against our own Kashmiri Brothers”.

The protest came to an end after reaching Lal Chowk, when the police foiled the march and detained Rasheed along with other protesters. The disruption resulted in chaos in the civil lines area where huge anti-army and pro plebiscite protests erupted.

Rasheed told the media that “today’s mock protest is a wakeup call for the J&K police so that the message reaches to every local Jawan and Officer that they cannot become Indians despite humiliating their own people, and as such let every cop take the pledge to respect the fellow Kashmiri brothers who are fighting for the right to self determination and facing the worst at the hands of Indian state.”

Earlier, Ayaz Akbar, spokesman of the Hurriyat, had said, “It serves a bitter lesson for those officials and officers who for medals & material gains behave as “more loyal than king.”

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