 "Omar Abdullah grappled by J&K cops as he tries to visit martyrs' grave")
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and several cabinet ministers on Monday scaled a wall to visit the graves of the July 13 martyrs in Srinagar after being stopped by police.
In a video he shared on his X account, he can be seen walking towards the graveyard with security personnel. Upon reaching there, he climbed the wall to enter the graveyard as the gate appeared to be locked.
“Paid my respects & offered Fatiha at the graves of the martyrs of 13th July 1931. The unelected government tried to block my way forcing me to walk from Nawhatta chowk. They blocked the gate to Naqshband Sb shrine forcing me to scale a wall. They tried to physically grapple me but I was not going to be stopped today,” he said in a post on X.
In another video, police personnel can be seen trying to restrict him from entering.
Sharing a video of the incident, he further wrote, “This is the physical grappling I was subjected to but I am made of sterner stuff & was not to be stopped. I was doing nothing unlawful or illegal. In fact these ‘protectors of the law’ need to explain under what law they were trying to stop us from offering Fatiha.”
Many prominent leaders of the Union Territory were kept under house arrest on Sunday, prohibiting them from paying their respects on July 13, which is considered Martyrs Day in the UT, PTI reported.
Abdullah also alleged that when he expressed his desire to offer prayer at the graveyard on Sunday, bunkers were set up to stop him.
“It is sad that on the instructions of the people who claim that their responsibility is the security and 'law and order, we were not allowed to offer ‘fateha’ here. We were kept in house arrest (on Sunday). When gates opened, I expressed to the control room my desire to offer fateha. Within minutes, bunkers were put up and they were not removed late into the night,” Abdullah told reporters, as quoted by PTI.
What happened on July 13?
On July 13, 1931, a group of Kashmiris gathered outside Srinagar Central Jail to protest the trial of Abdul Qadeer, who called on Kashmiris against Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh. However, Singh's forces opened fire at them. In total, 22 people were killed.
Since then, July 13 has been observed as Martyrs’ Day in Jammu and Kashmir to honour those who lost their lives. It used to be a public holiday before the reorganisation of the erstwhile state into two UTs in August 2019. The administration dropped the day from the list of gazetted holidays in 2020, PTI reported.