Kashmir Martyrs' Day

Kashmir Martyrs' Day
یومِ شہداءِ کشمیر
Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir
StatusOfficially inactive in India since 2019; Pakistan still observes it
GenreRemembrance
Date(s)13 July
FrequencyAnnually
Inaugurated13 July 1931 (1931-07-13)
FounderAll India Kashmir Committee
Most recentDecember 2019 (2019-12)
Part of the 1931 Kashmir agitation

Kashmir Martyrs' Day (Urdu: یومِ شہداءِ کشمیر Transliteration. Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir[1]) or Kashmir Day,[a] was a former official state holiday observed in Kashmir in remembrance of 21 Muslim protesters killed on 13 July 1931 by Dogra forces of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in British India.[3][4]

On that day, Kashmiri Muslims protesting outside the Srinagar Central Jail, where Abdul Qadeer was being held and tried on charges of sedition, were fired upon by state forces after refusing to disperse and instead entering the prison premises.[5][failed verification] The crowds buried the bodies of those killed by the state forces in the graveyard attached to the Shrine of Khwaja Bahawuddin Naqshbandi (Ziyarat Naqshband Sahab) in Srinagar, which has since come to be known as Mazar-e-Shuhada or the Martyrs' Graveyard.[3]

The day was removed as an official holiday of Jammu and Kashmir by the Government of India in December 2019.[6] The Government of Pakistan still marks the day.[1]

On the other hand, Kashmiri Hindus observe the events of July 1931 as the beginning of their oppression, which would reach a peak with the exodus in 1990.[2][7] For Kashmiri Hindu organisations, the ethnic cleansing of Hindus had begun with the arrival of Muslim rule in the region. For them, the real victims are not the Kashmiri Muslims who died on 13 July 1931 but those Kashmiri Hindus who were "victims of communal carnage".[2]

Martyrs Graveyard at Ziyarat Naqshband Sahab
  1. ^ a b "Kashmir Martyrs Day: PM Imran pays tribute to Kashmiris for 'valiantly fighting' Hindutva regime". DAWN. Additional reporting by Naveed Siddiqui. 13 July 2020. Archived from the original on 26 September 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ a b c Zutshi, Chitralekha (9 July 2014). Kashmir's Contested Pasts: Narratives, Geographies, and the Historical Imagination. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-908936-9. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  3. ^ a b Kumar, Radha (2018). Paradise at War: A Political History of Kashmir. New Delhi: Aleph. pp. 25–27. ISBN 9789388292122.
  4. ^ WANI, PROF GULL MOHAMMAD (12 July 2021). "Martyr's Day: History From Below". Greater Kashmir. Archived from the original on 13 July 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  5. ^ "Martyrs' Day observed in Kashmir, leaders pay tribute". The Hindu. 14 July 2006. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  6. ^ "NC founder's anniversary off J&K holiday list". The Times of India. 29 December 2019. Archived from the original on 4 April 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  7. ^ Chakravarty, Ipsita (14 July 2015). "Who owns the memories of July 13, 1931? In J&K, it is a divisive question". Scroll.in. Archived from the original on 12 April 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2020. Mobilisations among Kashmiri Pandits have projected July 13 as a "black day", when arson and killings were allegedly unleashed on the state's minority community.


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