- Sirajul Haq says nation can’t yield on Kashmir issue for trade of onions, potatoes with India
Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Sirajul Haq has said that after Narendra Modi’s assumption of power in New Delhi, there had been a marked increase in India’s attacks on Pakistan and atrocities of occupation forces in held-Kashmir, but the Kashmiris struggle for liberation had not been affected.
Addressing a Kashmir Solidarity Conference in Muzaffarabad, Haq said that millions of people all over the world were on this day expressing solidarity with the oppressed Kashmiris, therefore the world community must extend its total support to their just cause and exert pressure on India for the grant of the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
He called upon the United Nations to implement its resolutions on Kashmir the way it had done in the case of East Timor and South Sudan. He said the Kashmir issue was the incomplete agenda of the division of India and the Kashmiris struggle for freedom was the continuation of the Pakistan movement. “The use of brute force by occupation forces could not crush the Kashmiris movement which made it clear that they were not ready for anything short of freedom,” he added.
Haq exhorted the Pakistan government to adopt a firm stance on Kashmir as the nation could not yield on this issue for trade of onions and potatoes with India. He said that when Indian Prime Minister Modi, during his visit to Bangladesh, confessed to having role in the breakup of Pakistan, Islamabad must have lodged protest about it, but it did not.
The Jamaat chief said that talking of friendship with India without resolution of the Kashmir issue was like rubbing salt into the wounds of the Kashmiris. He said that such an attitude of Pakistani rulers had compelled veteran Kashmir leader Syed Ali Geelani to state that if the Pakistani rulers did not want to fight against India, they should not weaken the Kashmiris movement.
Haq said there were three parties to the Kashmir issue, Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris, so the Kashmiri leadership should also be part of the talks. He said it was the moral duty of the government of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir to resolve the problems of the Kashmiri refugees.
The JI chief however thanked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Kashmir Committee Chairman Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PTI chief Imran Khan for their messages on the Kashmir Solidarity Day, expressing the hope that their support would continue till Kashmir got free.
JI’s Azad Kashmir chief Abdur Rashid Turabi, Kashmiri leader Ghulam Muhammad Safi and JI Information Secretary Amirul Azeem also spoke on the occasion. JI Chief Sirajul Haq led a rally to mark the day.