AJK president urges citizens to ‘turn every street corner into Kashmir forum’

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has warned the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) about losing occupied territory “if liberation movement is not turned into a mass campaign”.

"India is poised to eliminate the state of Kashmir, and it has brought 1.8 million Indian troops to settle them in IIOJK with the motive to deprive the Kashmiri people of their entity and culture and turn them into a minority in their own homeland," he said.

The AJK president was addressing “right to self-determination” conference on Tuesday outside the residence of former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Azad Kashmir Abdur Rashid Turabi in Bagh district.

Masood said there is needed to play role which “our elders had played to liberate present territory of Azad Kashmir from the oppressive Dogra rule in 1947”.

“Particularly the people of Bagh had played an important role in liberating this territory along with the people of the adjoining district of Poonch.”

He also called to give up holding limited gatherings, tiny conferences and seminars, saying Kashmiris “will have to come out of their homes to turn every chowk and intersection a political platform to raise our voice against the Indian oppression and the rights of our brethren of Indian occupied Kashmir.

"This will go a long way to capture the world attention and to compel the United Nations to implement its resolutions on Kashmir," he said, adding that Kashmir campaign must not remain restricted to our own cities and towns rather it should be expanded to the entire world.

The AJK president went on to say that the status of occupied Kashmir, which had its symbolic separate identity with its own constitution, flag and the state legislative assembly, is abolished by India on August 5 last year, and had turned it into a territory of the Indian Union.

“Now orders coming from Delhi are being implemented in in Srinagar by handpicked of the Delhi government.”

Masood said that support to the liberation struggle of Kashmir is the collective national and religious obligation of the people of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.