PM Imran urged to offer relief package for IOJ&K

Pakistan may give funds to UN for relief work in held valley, say speakers at webinar

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan should announce a relief package for the Kashmiri people caught in the harshest of lockdown in the occupied valley, speakers at a webinar said suggesting that Pakistan could give funds to UN for relief work in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR) organised a webinar titled “Kashmir: A Utopian Land with Dystopian Lives”.

The Webinar covered diverse discourse on Kashmir’s past, present and future, it also included China-India standoff as well.

The panellists included Yasir Rehman who moderated the session. The other panellists included Lt Gen (Retd) Raza Muhammad Khan, IICR CEO Sabah Aslam, IICR Chairman Maj Gen (Retd) Raza Muhammad, senior journalist on security and Kashmir Ahmed Qureshi, and Jammu Kashmir Salvation Movement President Altaf Ahmed Bhat.

While addressing the session Bhat highlighted the anguish which the people of Kashmir face.

He said the first lockdown was imposed in 1989, the second one after August 5, 2019, and a third one due to Covid-19.

Giving first-hand information from Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IO&JK) Bhat said that in past 310 days of lockdown 170 youth have been martyred, 1,500 people critically injured, 995 houses damaged or demolished, while more than 100 women molested in fake cordon and search operations.

Bhat demanded that PM Imran Khan should announce and offer a handsome relief package to UN for besieged people of IO&JK as he announced $8 billion for people of Pakistan.

Moreover, UN should ask India to allow international organisations access to IO&JK for relief and healthcare activities for besieged people of the occupied valley who are under lockdown for last 311 days.

Lt Gen (Retd) Raza Khan said that all parties in Kashmir issue are nuclear armed.

Maj Gen (Retd) Raza Muhammad pointed out that India will continue to provoke Pakistan through LOC.

Sabah Aslam said; “It has been a dilemma that we always had an uncommunicative minister for Kashmir affairs which weakens Pakistan’s advocacy of IO&JK.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2020.