Kashmiris protest, shout “Free Kashmir” outside Edgbaston Cricket Ground

Srinagar: As India and Pakistan meet on a London pitch, for the first time after August 2016, Kashmiris came out in protest shouting “Free Kashmir”, “Go India Go” slogans outside Edgbaston Cricket Ground.

Carrying placards with pictures of Burhan Wani, they were shouting slogans for freedom of Kashmir.

Live footage available on social websites suggests that there were various groups with the placards outside the Edgbaston where India and Pakistani teams are playing a match.

It was not immediately known if there are Kashmiris and Pakistanis inside the stadium with the Kashmiri placards. For the last few days, the Kashmiris living in UK had launched a campaign to use the match as an awareness event on Kashmir by using placards that get attention towards Kashmir.

Some of the members of these protesting groups were wearing t-shirts with captions: “We are proud to be Kashmiri.” In one such gathering there was a green-white flag with Srinagar written on it. These groups had brought bands with them to get the maximum of attention from crowds around.

One report said that some of these protests are being confronted by the NRIs living in UK. There were pro-Pakistan slogans also being raised in some of these gatherings. There are peculiar Kashmir style slogans “Burhan wali azaadi, Sabzar wali azaadi” also heard from one crowd. Most of these groups seemingly were pro-Pakistan groups.

UK has a huge Kashmir origin population. In fact, most of Mirpur lives in UK. They have been early settlers in the country at a time when UK was reconstructing after the last war.