Mehmood compares India to Nazi Germany

Says the govt will continue its political and moral support to Kashmiris

ISLAMABAD: Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood on Sunday said that the government will continue its political and moral support to Kashmiris and will keep highlighting Indian atrocities in the disputed Himalayan valley at an international level.

He said this while chairing a solidarity conference ‘Rooh-e-Azadi, Kashmir and Ahl-e-Qalam’ at the National History and Literary Heritage Division’s conference room on Sunday. The conference had been organised by the Academy of Letters — a subsidiary of the division.

Mehmood added that he was relieved to see how the country’s literary community gave importance to the Kashmir issue.

Kashmir, he said, is a serious international matter and that they will have to work for its freedom by keeping their political differences aside.

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He added that there was no allegory in history of the sort of atrocities being committed in Kashmir.

The minister pointed out that India has deployed around a million soldiers in the disputed valley to slaughter the rights of innocent Kashmiris and to keep them oppressed. India, he said, wants to uphold its dominion over Kashmir and for this purpose, it has gone blind.

He compared India’s mindset towards Kashmir with that of Hitler and Nazi Germany and said that the international community should take notice of India’s negative approach.

“We will all have to fight the Indian mindset together,” he said, reiterating that India has violated United Nations resolutions by scrapping the special status of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

This, he said, has unveiled the true, brutal face of India. He exhorted the international community, particularly Muslim countries, to strongly condemn India's actions and pressurise it to restore Kashmir’s special status.

He added that Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to become an ambassador to highlight the Kashmir issue on every forum in the world while clarifying that any Indian misadventure will receive a strong response.

Iftikhar Arif argued that writers never turned a blind eye from the Kashmir issue. He pointed to the works of writers such as Mir Ali Hamdani, Ahmad Shamim, Syed Arif, Ahmad Javed and Taus Banahali who excessively wrote about the Kashmir issue.

Arif stated that it is required that writers, irrespective of their political affiliation, fearlessly highlight the Kashmir issue.

“A pen has its strength and voice, we will together strengthen contention for Kashmir,” he said. He demanded that the issue should be raised globally and that all independent countries who believed in freedom should plaay their role in resolving the Kashmir issue.

Dr Ehsan Akbar said that writers have to highlight the Kashmir issue at every cost. He added that Narendra Modi’s government sees politics through the lens of hatred while India has broken the Simla Agreement by abolishing Kashmir's special status.

He demanded that all Muslim countries and the international community at large should take notice of India's illegal occupation of Kashmir. Professor Jalil Aali said that writers would continue their support of Kashmiris.

Hameed Shahid said that abolishing articles 370 and 35-A. were cruel acts, adding that the brutality and barbarism of Indian forces in Kashmir were unbearable.

He said that it was their responsibility to highlight the Kashmir issue on the diplomatic front to show the cruel face of India to the world.

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Mir Tanha Yusufi said that all Punjabi writers were standing with their Kashmiri brethren. Mir Shafaq said that on behalf of all Pashtuns, he was supporting his Kashmiri brothers through his pen. He said the people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) fought the freedom war for Kashmir while freedom was their belief. Wafa Chishti expressed support for Kashmir on behalf of Seraikis and strongly condemned Indian oppression. Wahid Buksh and Manzur Waseryu also expressed solidarity with Kashmiris on behalf of Balochi and Sindhi writers and said that they had to push the Kashmir cause forward.

A resolution was also passed during the conference which condemned Indian oppression and violation of human rights in Kashmir. The resolution further demanded that Indian forces end their restrictions on writers, journalists, poets etc in the occupied valley. Moreover, it urged that the UN’s mandate of guaranteeing basic human rights must be upheld.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2019.