Opposition slams govt for forcing resolutions

PPP, PTI, AJKMC leaders say Kashmir cause greater priority for them

MUZAFFARABAD: The combined opposition in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly (AJKLA) on Friday slammed the government for forcing through a resolution backing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over the Pamanagate verdict.

“Before the session [on Tuesday] we had been told that the AJKLA will focus on atrocities committed by security forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) since the martyrdom of Burhan Muzaffar Wani,” said Opposition Leader Chaudhry Yaseen of the Pakistan Peoples Party while addressing a news conference on Friday.

“The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) dumped the entire agenda about resolutions to condemn the ongoing brutalities in IoK,” he said flanked by the parliamentary leader for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Majid Khan, Malik Nawaz of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC) and former AJK PM Chaudhry Abdul Majid.

“The ruling elite of AJK preferred to praise the Prime Minister Nawaz on the Panamagate rather than condemn the Indian state terrorism on the first day of the session, which was against the agenda,” he said.

“We accommodated the opposition along with incumbent AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider as an opposition leader with dignity and honour. But the arrogance which PM Haider and his party have shown during the session is now intolerable,” the PPP leaders said, adding, “Democracy is the name of patience which does not exist in PML-N’s AJK chapter and such attitude would be counterproductive for the rest of their government.”

Yaseen added that the opposition will never accept that any elected representative from the opposition parties stays in police stations.

“AJK is the basecamp for the ongoing liberation movement [in IoK] and we will put the ongoing liberation struggle on priority than hail the PM Nawaz who was declared by two senior judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan as being dishonest and a liar,” the opposition leader added.

All the other opposition leaders agreed with Yaseen.

The ruling PML-N had called a session of the AJKLA on Tuesday ostensibly to condemn the recent wave of violence in IoK. However during the session, a resolution backing Nawaz was put forward. Opposition tore copies of the agenda to mark their protest.

Subsequently, AJK premier Haider called for a probe to determine who had torn copies of the agenda while membership of six opposition members was suspended provisionally.

During Wednesday’s session of the AJKLA, six resolutions expressing satisfaction over Nawaz’s performance had been tabled.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2017.