‘Mere statements cannot free Kashmir from Indian occupation’

Speakers at a seminar organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami on Wednesday said that the liberation of the Indian-occupied Kashmir (IOK) can become a reality only through waging jihad.

They said that mere statements on Kashmir by Prime Minster Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will not work, and that there is a dire need to exercise might instead. The Kashmir Solidarity Seminar was held at Idara Noor-e-Haq, the JI headquarters in Karachi, in connection with Kashmir Solidarity Day that is observed every year on February 5.

The speakers urged the Pakistani government to take practical measures and to impress upon the comity of nations, the United Nations and international human rights organisations to force India to honour the UN charter for resolving the IOK issue.

JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman condemned human rights violations in IOK and said that Kashmiris are with Pakistan. He said that it is our rulers’ responsibility to highlight the Kashmir issue at international forums to make them aware of Indian atrocities being committed in the valley.

He lamented that international forces and the UN wake up when it comes to Iraq, Sudan and issues with other countries, but they keep silent on the world’s most burning issue of IOK. He asked all the political parties and human rights bodies to voice the Kashmir issue together as well as censure the brutalities being meted to the people of the valley at the hands of the Indian government.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nihal Hashmi said that considering the option of jihad is the responsibility of the government, adding that if it were to announce waging jihad, the people of the country will stand with Kashmiris in their just struggle for freedom.

He said that the government should allow the prime minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir to announce waging jihad. “We are with the Kashmir PM and will wage jihad together against India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir.”

Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Taj Haider said that we should identify our friends and foes, because being a Third World country, we have been forced by the mightier nations to fight to satisfy their interior motives.

He said that in accordance with the UN charter, a plebiscite can be held in IOK to know the will of the people, so the government should approach the international community to make it happen.