The separatists in Kashmir have further scaled down their ongoing agitation by restricting the strike call to every Friday and have asked people to observe a 'black day' on Republic Day.
In a fresh protest programme issued late last night, the separatists - hardline Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, moderate Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik - asked the people to observe strike only on Fridays.
After the unrest broke out in the Valley following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in July last year, the separatists have been issuing regular protest programmes. The protests have died away since November and the separatists restricted the strike to Friday and Saturday every week.
In view of Republic Day, the separatists have called for a shutdown on Thursday as well this week. They have also called for joint protest on Monday after the afternoon prayer.
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Meanwhile, Union Minister Jitendra Singh today said the new generation is no longer to be swayed by the arguments of the separatists.
"As I have always maintained in the past also, even at the risk of sounding unorthodox, separatists in Kashmir are not separatists by conviction but separatists by convenience and therefore, they could carry on this bluff for a few years but the new generation is no longer taken in by this kind of bluff," Singh told a TV channel.
Referring to the separatists, Singh said many of them had been in mainstream politics till yesterday and when they could not make it over there, they drifted into this kind of separatist policy.
"So in other words separatism for them is not an ideology or a belief, it is politics by other means at the cost of innocent masses," he said.
The Minister of State in the PMO said the new generation of Kashmiri boys and girls are awakened enough and they have an exposure which is almost global and therefore "they can no longer be taken in by this kind of rhetoric".
He added that the new generation can also not be taken in by mainstream politicians who had over the years have the habit of speaking one language in Srinagar, another in Jammu and a third one in Delhi.
