Lahore High Court Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial said on Saturday that a behavioural change needed to improve Pakistan-India relations.
He was addressing a seminar on Role of Jurists in Indo-Pak Harmony held under the auspices of the Punjab Bar Council to welcome a delegation of Indian lawyers.
Bandial said harmony emerged when justice was provided to the masses. “We have to change our ways as individuals if we want to bring about a change in the region,” he said.
The 110-member delegation arrived here on Saturday to discuss promotion of friendly relations between the two nations.
The delegation, led by Adish C Aggarwala, president of the International Council of Jurists and the All India Bar Association, is also scheduled to meet supreme court judges.
Aggarwala said they would hold meetings with jurists from the Lahore High Court, the Islamabad High Court and lower courts in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Nankana Sahib. “The Indian jurists are of the view that the people of this region should accept the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir as international boundary for the cause of prosperity.
Both India and Pakistan have been spending a large part of their budgets just to protect themselves from each other,” he said. These funds could be utilised for the cause of education, hospitals, roads and communications, he said.
“We hope that our counterparts would agree to the LoC proposal,” Aggarwala said.
Punjab Bar Council Vice Chairman Malik Ghulam Abbas Nissoana said people of Pakistan and India loved each other.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2012.
COMMENTS (6)
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"@Frustrated:Will you be able hold a democratic referendum in both Baluchistan and Waziristan? You can’t throw stone on others sitting in a glass house?" Would you like to give plebiscite right to the Kashmiri people to allow them to decide that either they want to live with India or Pakistan or want their own separate/independent state instead of holding elections in Jammu Kashmir and to coerce the Kashmiris to cast the votes on gunpoint forcibly pro India and please stop to interfere Balochistan's and Gilgit Baltistan's matters??????? And as far as your this stance/standpoint is concerned "We all know what happened in East Pakistan!" then we all know that Sikhs are running the independent movement on low level in India named "Khalistan" for independence........What about it???????
@Caramelized_Onion: Will you be able hold a democratic referendum in both Baluchistan and Waziristan? You can't throw stone on others sitting in a glass house?
We all know what happened in East Pakistan!
Change of behaviours in Pakistan and India for comradeship and peace are only and only based on the solution of Kashmir issue on top priority basis as soon as possible.... And as far as this stance/standpoint is concerned "Indian jurists want LoC to be accepted as international border" then this means that Kashmir shall be declared India's integral part which is absolutely wrongful and Indian leadership wants it and in Indian leadership's mind Pakistan accepts Kashmir India's integral part is the only solution of Kashmir issue and these types of statements Indian leaders have given many times on various platforms of the world......
@BlackJack: As expected, a totally out of context reply from an Indian commentor. Let the world's biggest democracy hold a democratic referendum in Kashmir, according to the UN mandate. The results can then speak for themselves. Also, India can begin by reducing troop concentrations on the Pakistani border and especially in Kashmir as a confidence building measure.
Is India ready and willing to do that? All I see is more war games on the Pakistani border. Didn't think so.
The funny thing is that peace between India and Pakistan is so much more to Pakistan's advantage than India's. We have an uneasy relationship with China which will force us to continue to spend on upgrading our military capabilities - Pakistan has a choice to be like Bangladesh and focus on improving the lot of its citizens, instead of trying to match India rupee for rupee. Both BD and PAK are on the lower riparians, but there is a marked difference in the rhetoric - which will result in India accommodating Bangladeshi concerns while ignoring those of Pakistan. The change in behavior that is required from Pakistan is to forget the pipe dream called Ghazwa-e-Hind, and get realistic on Kashmir.
yes indeed on both sides.
India talks about friendship and moves against Pakistan's interests, this attitude needs to change too
http://tribune.com.pk/story/444080/obstructing-the-water-doorway-kishanganga-dam-to-limit-water-flow/