MIRPUR: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan Saturday urged the youth to devote their time and energies for the promotion of Kashmir cause and raise their voice for the oppressed and subjugated people of Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK).
“I urge the youth of the country to work for the realization of the right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who are being oppressed and brutalized and have been disenfranchised,” he said while addressing as chief guest at the inaugural session of the Model United Nations Conference organized by Public Speaking Society of the Institute of Public Administration (IBA) in Karachi, according to a press release issued here by the AJK Presidential Secretariat.
Sardar Masood said the people of IoK had been made alien in their own homeland. The occupation forces were killing, torturing and maiming the youth, while the women were being dishonoured. The Indian forces, he added, were raping even children and mass blinding the young people by using lethal pellet guns.
“This all is being done in an environment of absolute impunity,” the AJK President said. All the perpetrators of the heinous crimes, he regretted, had been given immunity from prosecution under draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Public Safety Act (PSA), which had been called lawless laws by the Amnesty International.
He asked the students, faculty members of the IBA and youth across the country to intensify their political, diplomatic and moral support to their brothers and sisters in IoK, who were struggling for their inherent right to self-determination.
“Let me also tell you that every citizen of Pakistan believes in the justness of Kashmir cause but our endeavours are not critical. I would say every citizen of Pakistan, every individual, and every student; every young man and women should invest their time and energy for intensifying political and diplomatic campaigns for the freedom and liberty of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he emphasised.
Sharing his views with the audience on the successes and failures of the United Nations, President Masood said the unresolved Kashmir conflict was one of the biggest failures of the world body. The non-resolution of the conflicts in Africa and the Middle East were perilously drifting the world towards bigger conflict.
The United Nations, he added, also failed to take action needed to stave off the worst effects of climate change that was now affecting every country on every continent.
About the success of the United Nations, the AJK president said the world body still provided hope for the troubled and turbulent world. The UN not only succeeded in preventing an outbreak of world war in the last seven decades by sending peacekeeping and observer missions to the world’s trouble spots to restore peace and calm and allowing many countries to recover from the conflicts.
The world body had contributed to the efforts around the world in disaster management, helping victims of disasters and reducing the effects of man-made and natural disasters and also significantly contributing towards sustainable development and improving literacy and education around the world, he added.
Sardar Masood urged the IBA and the Public Speaking Society to prepare the students for multilateral diplomacy and international relations along with developing requisite skills and abilities to make them able to work for peace, development and human rights both in the country and at international level.
