WR Desk: In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has expressed grave concern over the plight of illegally detained Hurriyat leaders, activists and youth languishing in jails in India and the occupied territory, and urged the United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and international human rights organizations to press India for their release.

APHC spokesman Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas, in a statement issued in Srinagar, said that India had imprisoned more than 3,000 Kashmiris, including Hurriyat leaders, in fabricated cases.

He said the mass detention of Kashmiris was aimed at punishing Kashmiris for demanding freedom from Indian occupation, but such coercive measures could not suppress their aspiration for freedom. He noted that some detainees had spent more than two decades behind bars, including Dr. Mohammad Qasim Fakhtoo, Dr. Muhammad Shafi Shariati, Ghulam Qadir Butt, Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, Mohammad Ayub Dar, Mohammad Ayub Mir, Javed Ahmad Khan, Feroz Ahmed Dar, Abdul Hameed Tailee, Tariq Ahmed Mattoo, Mahmood Topi Wala, Bashir Ahmad Pannu, Fayyaz Ahmed, Sharifud-Din-Gujjar, Muhammad Ashraf Peer, Khalid Mehboob Phalwan, Maqsood Ahmed Bhat, Pervaiz Ahmed Mir, Mohammad Abbas Wani, Farooq Ahmad Sheikh, Abdul Waheed, Abdul Rasheed Mir and Fahdullah.