JI chief demands APC, joint sitting on Kashmir

Scores of people take part in JI-sponsored event

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq on Sunday made an impassioned appeal for a joint session of parliament as well as an all-parties meeting to thrash out a national strategy on Kashmir.

Addressing participants of the Azadi-e-Kashmir march organised by the Jamaat towards the Wagah border crossing from Lahore’s Nasir Bagh, he urged the government to appoint a deputy foreign minister who would be dedicated to Kashmir affairs.

Warning the rulers against welcoming Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who will be travelling to Islamabad for the Saarc interior and home ministers conference on August 3, Haq said: “Whoever welcomes him will be compelled to leave Pakistan.”

A large number of people participated in the march. They were holding flags of the JI, its student wing, the Islami Jamiat Talaba and the banned organisation Hizbul Mujahideen.



Haq addressed the participants at Manawan, a place few kilometres from Wagah on GT Road, where the JI had set up its stage. “The struggle to free Kashmir from the Indian aggression is an obligation on every Pakistanis because Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir,” he said.

The JI Amir asked the rulers to play their due role and support the Kashmir cause at the international level. He said Pakistan should establish a fund to support injured Kashmiris.

He said on August 14 people would celebrate Independence Day and on the next day they would mark a black day by holding a rally from Muzaffarabad to Chakothi. He said each Pakistani is ready to follow the path of Burhan Wani, who died due to Indian firing in Kashmir.

Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin, while addressing the participants, said the murder of one Kashmiri, Burhan Wani, had created a feeling of hatred in Pakistan towards India.

Pakistan, according to him, should break off diplomatic relations with India till the final settlement of Kashmir. He claimed that Kashmiris were being denied water, food and medicine. International rights bodies are acting as a silent spectator, he added.

He said his party would continue its ‘jihad’ till the full withdrawal of Indian forces from Kashmir. He appealed to Islamabad to use its influence at the international level and help resolve the Kashmir dispute. He also urged the people to agitate against the arrival of the Indian home minister in Pakistan.

Qari Yaqoob Sheikh of Jamaatud Dawa described India as the second biggest terrorist country in the world after the United States. He said India never paid any heed towards the UN’s resolutions on Kashmir.

He said so far 300 Kashmiris have lost their eyesight due to the use of pellet guns by Indian security forces and another 3,000 have been injured in the continuing wave of violence there.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2016.