President, PM reaffirm Pakistan’s support for Kashmiris on Black Day

ISLAMABAD: As Kashmir marks the ‘Black Day’ in condemnation of India’s illegal occupation of the region, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in separate messages, expressed solidarity with the Kashmiris, pledging unwavering support until the achievement of their inalienable right to self-determination.

President Zardari said that Pakistan would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its Kashmiri brothers and sisters until the final resolution of Kashmir dispute and freedom of Kashmir. The president urged the international community to pressurize India to halt its human rights abuses in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), alleviate the suffering of Kashmiris and implement the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

He also condemned India’s ongoing atrocities in the illegally occupied territory and reaffirmed Pakistan’s unwavering moral, diplomatic and political support for the Kashmiri people’s just cause.

In his message on the occasion, PM Shehbaz Sharif said that the people of IIOJK have suffered countless hardships during the last 77 years of occupation. He said India had been taking successive steps to tighten its grip over the IIOJK since August 5, 2019 when New Delhi abolished the special status of the disputed region.

“India’s nefarious designs are aimed at undermining the disputed status of IIOJK and denying the Kashmiri people their democratic right to decide their own future,” he said. The PM promised that Pakistanis will continue to extend full moral, diplomatic and political support for Kashmiris.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Gilgit-Baltistan and SAFRON Engineer Amir Muqam also reaffirmed Pakistan’s resolve to continue extending political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris. In his message on the occasion of Kashmir Black Day, he said India was committing the worst human rights violations in IIOJK and trying to stop the struggle of Kashmiris through military atrocities.

The minister said the entire Pakistani nation paid tribute to the brave and courageous Kashmiris who were continuing their struggle despite India’s brutal actions. It was on October 27, 1947, that Indian troops invaded Jammu and Kashmir in blatant violation of the Partition plan and occupied the region against the will of the Kashmiri people.

Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control and all over the world observed the Black Day to send a message of rejecting India’s illegal occupation of their homeland. The day was marked by a shutdown in IIOJK. Protest marches, rallies and seminars were held in Pakistan and across the globe.

In Azad Kashmir, protest marches, rallies and seminars were also held in all the districts and tehsil headquarters to condemn the Indian Army’s invasion on October 27, 1947, and the revocation of special status of IIOJK by the BJP-led Hindutva government of India.

In the state capital Muzaffarabad, Kashmir Liberation Commission arranged a protest demonstration followed by a rally. Similarly, Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri Refugees, other Hurriyat organisations and political and religious parties arranged anti-India rallies and seminars on the Black Day. President AJK Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry and Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq had appealed to Kashmiris all over the world to register their protest against India.