‘Saudi Arabia fully supported Kashmir cause from OIC platform’

AJK presidents says the worst Islamophobia is taking place in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir

MUZAFFARABAD:

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan, while rejecting the impression of withdrawal of support by Saudi Arabia to Pakistan's stand on the Kashmir issue, has said that Riyadh from the platforms of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its Kashmir Contact Group always supports Islamabad's stance.

He said in the recent meeting of the OIC Foreign Ministers Council in Niamey town of Niger that Saudi Arabia has once again robustly explained its stand on the Kashmir issue and helped us highlighting the decades-long dispute on the global level.

In separate interviews with the US-based Muslim Network TV and Saudi Arabia's daily Arab News, he said that at the Niamey meeting, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan, in his address to the conference, said in unequivocal terms that peace and security of South Asia is not possible without the settlement of the Kashmir conflict.

The AJK president said that this statement by Prince Faisal assumes more significance because Saudi Arabia is the current chair of the OIC. “The people of Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir had expected that the brotherly country Saudi Arabia would adopt a strong position on the situation of Kashmir,” he said but regretted that the UAE had adopted silence on the Kashmir issue.

About the OIC's concern over anti-Muslim hatred in different regions of the world, President Masood said that he had made it clear to the Muslim leaders during the meeting that the worst Islamophobia is taking place in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) where Hindu fanatics are targeting the Muslims because of their religion, faith and values, and they wanted to eliminate the Muslims in not only India but also in the disputed valley.

To a question, he said that the Indian army had violated the ceasefire line and targeted civilian population along the Line of Control (LoC) more than 2,700 times during the current year alone. “As a consequence, dozens of people were martyred, scores were injured, and the people's property damaged.”

On the other hand, he maintained that Pakistan Army in response to India's aggression targets only Indian military position and avoid targeting the Kashmiri brethren living on the other side of the LoC.

About the latest situation in the disputed territory, the AJK president said that India is using rape as an instrument of war against Kashmiri women.

He went on to say that the Modi-led government in violation of the UN resolutions settling Indian Hindus in the internationally recognised disputed territory of Kashmir in order to turn Muslim-majority state into a Hindu-majority region. 

When asked to comment on the silence of the UN Human Rights Commission after issuing two reports on flagrant violation of Kashmiri people, Masood said, the reports of United Nations Commission on Human Rights had significantly help highlighted the gross human rights violation in Kashmir.

He said that after the UN Human Rights Commission reports of 2018 and 2019, the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, European Parliament and the All-party Parliamentary Kashmir Group of the UK Parliament have also issued separate reports on human rights violations by the Indian troops in IIOJK.