People of Sindh took to the streets on Monday to show solidarity with the people of Indian occupied Kashmir. PHOTOS: ONLINE/APP
HYDERABAD/ KARACHI: Sindh Assembly deferred all of its agenda on Monday and decried Indian aggression in Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK). A unanimous resolution was adopted to condemn Indian government’s decision to revoke Article 370 of the Indian constitution which granted special constitutional status to IOK.
The joint resolution moved by lawmakers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) asked the provincial government to forward the views of the assembly to the Centre and urge the international community, including United Nations and the Muslim ummah, to take notice of India’s nefarious step in what is recognised as ‘disputed territory’.
PPP’s Mukesh Kumar Chawla and Sharjeel Memon, GDA’s Hasnain Mirza and Nand Kumar Goklani, PTI’s Haleem Adil Shaikh and MQM-P’s Rana Ansar were among the signatories of the resolution.
“This move has been designed to deprive Kashmiris of their right to self-determination and to bring demographic changes in the region by converting the Muslim majority into a minority,” read the resolution. “This house further condemns current Indian atrocities against innocent Kashmiri men, women and children, which includes the use of illegal weapons and multiple violations across the Line of Control and violation of international boundaries between India and Pakistan.”
Protest rallies
The people of Sindh took to the streets on Monday to show solidarity with the people of Indian occupied Kashmir. Hundreds of rallies by teachers, students, traders, political and social activists were taken out in all districts of the province.
In Hyderabad, teachers and students of several schools and colleges held demonstrations expressing support for the freedom struggle of Kashmiris suffering atrocities at the hands of the Indian army. The workers of PTI, PPP, MQM-P, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen and other political parties also organised rallies.
“Pakistanis have always raised their voice against the oppression of Indian forces in occupied Kashmir and abuse of human rights,” said Vice Chancellor of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro, Prof Bikha Ram Devrajani, at a rally taken out on the campus. “The Indian government is using rape, pellet guns and mass burials to suppress the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people.”
The VC urged the international community, the United Nations and human rights organisations to take notice of the grave human rights violations in IOK. He said that the people across the border should use social media to expose Indian atrocities.
Speaking at a large rally in Sindh University, Jamshoro, Vice Chancellor Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat said that India after failing to repress the Kashmiri struggle has now resorted to changing the demography of IOK. “India is replicating the Israeli model ... to turn Muslim majority presence in the Valley into a marginalised minority.”
“Restricting civil, cultural, religious and political liberties, silencing their voices and suppressing their freedom is akin to subjecting them [Kashmiris] to slavery. This all, added by the tremendous intensity of violence is what makes the Kashmir issue a case of worst human tragedy,” Burfat contended.
The rally’s participants carried a banner showing several images of innocent women and children who sustained injuries at the hands of the Indian army.
PTI’s Sindh chapter also organised rallies in Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Kambar-Shahdadkot, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Umerkot, Nawabshah and other districts of Sindh. They demanded the UN to give the right of plebiscite to the Kashmiri people and strongly condemned the use of Cluster bombs by the Indian occupation army at the Line of Control.
“Indian brutalities in IOK have exposed the real face of that so-called democracy,” said GDA General Secretary Ayaz Latif Palijo.
He deplored illegal detention of the leaders of the Kashmiri freedom movement. “Kashmiris don’t consider Kashmir a part of the Indian federation.” He said the Pakistan Army will give a befitting response to Indian aggression at the LoC.
MQM-P’s leader and Acting Mayor of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Suhail Mehmood Mashadi at his party’s demonstration at Kohinoor chowk in Hyderabad said freedom is the ultimate destiny of Kashmiris.
PPP MPA Abdul Jabbar Khan led a rally from the district council to Hyderabad Press Club where the participants condemned Indian savagery and reiterated the demand for intervention by the international community. District administration officials in almost all districts of Sindh also arranged rallies participated by the cross-section of the civil society.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 6th, 2019.
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