AJK president seeks Kashmiri diaspora's participation in US protest rally

MUZAFFARABAD/NEW YORK: President Azad Jammu and Kashmir Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry has urged the Kashmiris and Pakistanis settled in the US to participate fully in the protest demonstration held in front of the Indian Embassy in Washington on October 27 to register their protest against India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir.

While addressing a press conference here in Washington DC, the AJK president said, “Our struggle for the right to self-determination will continue until Occupied Kashmir is freed from Indian rule”.

The president said that the million marches held in London, New York, Brussels and Berlin in the recent past had given a significant boost to the Kashmir issue at the global level.“I, therefore, appeal to the Kashmiri and Pakistani diaspora community to ensure their presence in the upcoming protest and play their much-needed role to expose India’s nefarious designs before the world”, the AJK president said.

While terming Kashmiris as the real and important party to the Kashmir dispute, Barrister Chaudhary and prominent Kashmiri intellectual Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai stated that there was a dire need for an inclusive dialogue between all the stakeholders to find out a solution to the Kashmir problem. Inclusion of Kashmiris in the dialogue process between India and Pakistan, they said, was imperative to bring about a just and equitable solution to the Kashmir dispute.

“Kashmir is one of the oldest unresolved disputes that has been pending on the UN agenda for 75 years”, they said, adding that it was high time that the United Nations should play its role and exert pressure on India to implement the UNSC resolutions.

They said that the international community should take effective cognizance of the worsening political and human rights situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and play its role to stop the bloodbath of innocent Kashmir.