Bilal Bashir Bhat
Srinagar, April 20 (KNB): Lending an attentive ear to the rumors that Pakistan based star cricketer Shahid Khan Afridi will address the gathering at Kashmir’s grand mosque, the authorities on Friday snapped the mobile internet services in summer capital Srinagar.
Highly placed sources revealed to Kashmir News Bureau (KNB) that in view of the rumors on different social networking sites that Pakistan based star cricketer Shahid Afridi will address a public gathering at Jama Masjid Srinagar located in old city Srinagar the authorities curbed the mobile internet services in Srinagar.
As per these rumors, Afridi was scheduled to address the gathering last week, however, due to the restrictions and no prayers in grand mosque the program was postponed for today.
Earlier this month Shahid Afridi via a tweet urged the United Nations (UN) to intervene in what he termed “Indian Occupied Kashmir” to stop the killing of “innocents.” The tweet later triggered a controversy with his counterparts in India including Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli lashed out at former.
The tweet of Shahid Afridi was followed by another Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar wherein he stressed: “to solve Kashmir issue taking Kashmiris into consideration.”
Meanwhile, in Jamia Masjid there was witnessed a routine gathering of faithful on the occasion of Friday congregation prayers where most of the people expressed ‘unawareness’ over the issue.
In the meantime, addressing the Friday gathering, the Jamia Mosque head priest Mirwaiz Umar Farooq lambasted at the ruling regime for imposing frequent curbs and caging the resistance leadership in jails and homes. He questioned the rulers as to how long they would curb the freedom resistance leadership and people?
He said today strong voices are emulating across India and Pakistan that war was not the solution and that Delhi must accept the ground reality and address the core issue of Kashmir. (KNB)