Srinagar: Hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani has said that people should not take part in New Year celebrations as he claimed it was not part of the "rich" Kashmiri culture.


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"Whatever is being thrust upon us in the name of New Year celebrations has nothing to do with our rich social values and traditions. "It is just cultural aggression aimed at detaching us from our religion, society and our rich past," he said in a statement here.


Referring to the proposed programmes on the eve of New Year at Gulmarg and other places in Kashmir, Geelani said that people, especially youths, should uphold their religious, cultural and moral values.


"Do not show the slavish mindset in any way. Islam, being the religion of nature, doesn't oppose or ban the expeditions or the excursions, but everything in the universe has limits and this activity also has its limits and no Muslim should cross those limits," Geelani added.


He claimed that Western culture is now reckoned to be a rejected culture and that people in New York and Washington D.C., too, are fed up "with the vulgar and horrific actions of this culture".