JKNIA PRESS RELEASE REGARDING MURDER OF ARIF SHAHID London ( JKNIA Press Release) 15/05/13 Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA) condemns in strongest terms the targeted killing of renowned Kashmiri nationalist leader and chairman of All Parties National Alliance (APNA) Sardar Arif Shahid. It is widely believed that he was murdered by elements of Pakistani security agencies who notoriously engaged in extra judicial killings, harassment, detentions and forced disappearance of civil and political activists in Azad Jammu Kashmir and Pakistan. JKNIA held an emergency meeting on 14th May 2013 in London attended by all the members of Alliance, JKLF, JKDFP and representative of civil society organizations where they expressed their shock and horror on behalf of the diaspora Kashmiri Community on the cold blooded murder of a great Kashmiri Leader and Activist Arif Shahid Central President of Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Council who was shot outside his house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on 13 May 2013. Mehmood Kashmiri, Chairman JKNIA informed the participants of this meeting that in very recent past Sardar Arif Shahid has been detained in Mipur Jail for hosting two fellow non-Muslim civil society activists from Jammu. His name was on Exit Control List (ECL) under the pressure of Pakistan’s secret service agencies because of his active role and building networks among all sections of nationalist political groups within AJK, Gilgit Baltistan and in Indian administered Jammu Kashmir. His name recently removed from ECL on the orders of superior judiciary in Pakistan and he was currently under trail for publishing a monthly magazine “Naya Kashmir”. It has emerged that he has been continuously harassed, intimidated and constantly watched and followed by the secret service agencies of Pakistan. The Alliance urged Government of Azad Jammu Kashmir to formally ask Government of Punjab, Pakistan to constitute a judicial enquiry to look into all the aspects and connections leading up-to this cold blooded murder and to press upon local administration to take immediate and appropriate action to find and bring the killers of Arif Shahid to justice JKNIA resolved to write to the Government of Punjab and Azad Jammu Kashmir and give them 7 days’ notice to constitute an independent judicial enquiry and to find and bring the killrs to justice. If this is not done within seven days JKNIA will consider this yet another case of a deliberate extra judicial killing by secret service agencies of Pakistan and take launch Justice for Arif Shahid campaign at international level. The leaders of JKNIA,Mirza Siddique (JKPF), Nadeem Aslam (JKNAP), Ghulam Hussain (KFM), Najeeb Afsar (KLO), Safdar Mir (ABK) and Azmat Khan (JKLF), Ershad Malik (JKDFP), Civil Society activists Shams Rehman, Sardar Aftab Khan, Shafqat Raja, urged all the members of Kashmiri diaspora in UK, Europe and all parts of the world to stand united and join the Justice for Arif Shahid Campaign to help in putting an end to extra judicial killings, harassment, detentions and forced disappearance of civil and political activists in Azad Jammu Kashmir and Pakistan. Nadeem Aslam Secretary General – JKNIA Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA)