The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Chairman, Syed Ali Gilani and the Chairman of Hurriyat forum, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq have paid glowing tributes to the victims of Kupwara massacre in Indian occupied Kashmir. According to Kashmir Media Service, Syed Ali Gilani in a statement issued in Srinagar said, "Although whole Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed the barbarism and brutality, but Kupwara bore most of the brunt and martyrs graveyards in the district stand testimony to it. Countless orphans and widows are a live proof of Indian hegemony and its atrocities."

He said, "Our loved ones in these graveyards put a huge responsibility on our shoulders not to deviate for this noble cause. Innocent faces of the orphans and the tearful eyes of the widows are more than enough to remind every soul of the territory that these budding youth have given their blood for a sacred cause which in no way should be forgotten."

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement in Srinagar, paying rich tributes to the victims of Kupwara massacre, said "the martyrs of Kashmir have offered priceless sacrifices for a sacred and great cause and the on-going movement will continue till their mission is realized." He said that over the past three decades, countless massacres like the one in Kupwara 24 years ago became the routine affair of forces in Kashmir wherein innocent Kashmiris including elderly, children, youth and women were brutally killed and maimed.

Copyright Associated Press of Pakistan, 2018