Dissenting view: ‘World’s largest democracy not the best of neighbours’

JI chief urges prime minister to resolve Kashmir dispute.

LAHORE: “The prime minister’s efforts to seek friendly relations with our sworn enemies can end up making Pakistanis virtual slaves to India,” Jamaat-i-Islami chief Syed Munawar Hasan said on Sunday.

Addressing the concluding session of a workshop at Mansoora, he said the prime minister would not have been elected to the office had he advocated such relations with India in his election campaign.



“The nation did not elect him to rub salt in Kashmiris wounds,” he said. He said freedom fighters in Kashmir had rendered sacrifices that would not be forgotten. He said the parliamentary committee for Kashmir affairs was “useless.”

He criticised the government for not being able to resolve the gas and electricity shortage in the country.

“It took this government only six months to earn public dissatisfaction,” he said.

Hasan expressed concern at the discovery of two ammunition factories in Balochistan.

“Why have security agencies failed to unearth these factories,” he said. “Who runs and funds these factories? What are their intentions?” he said.

He said Pakistan occupied an important geostrategic position in the region but the government was not drawing any benefit from it.

He said the US wanted to command the region’s resources with help from India.

Hasan said, ”Kashmiris have been demanding their rights for six decades but India has oppressed them with brute force,” he said.”It is a duty of the Pakistani government to raise its voice against the illegal occupation of Kashmir.”

“The biggest democracy in the world is not a good neighbour,” he said.

He said the Hurriyat Conference had played an important role in Kashmir but Pervez Musharraf had stabbed the Kashmiri Muslims in the back by causing a split in its ranks.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2013.