SRINAGAR: J&K MP and Awami Itihaad Party (AIP) president Engineer Rashid on Friday announced a 24-hour hunger strike from Sunday inside Tihar Jail to protest what he called “continued denial of democratic rights to Kashmiris”. He has been in jail since 2019 in a terror funding case.An AIP spokesperson said, “This hunger strike seeks to highlight the deafening silence of national parties about the hundreds of Kashmiris languishing in Tihar Jail and other prisons under draconian laws like UAPA, merely for political beliefs.”He said Rashid conveyed his decision at a meeting with his family and asserted that the hypocrisy of both BJP and Congress in accusing each other of throttling democracy must be exposed. Both the parties “are partners in crime when it comes to snatching the constitutional, democratic and human rights of Kashmiris,” the MP told his family as per the spokesperson.“While BJP is correctly highlighting the atrocities committed during the 1975 Emergency, it conveniently forgets how it has treated Kashmiris over the past 11 years, jailing legitimate political voices, silencing dissent and branding political belief as criminality. Congress and others, on the other hand, accuse the Modi govt of imposing an undeclared emergency but remain silent about the hundreds of Kashmiris in Tihar and other prisons under draconian laws like UAPA, simply for their political beliefs,” Rashid told his family, the spokesperson said.