The fate of Kashmir should be decided by its people: Farooq Sattar

MQM organises event at Nine Zero to commemorate Kashmir Day.

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) deputy convener, Farooq Sattar, has asked the Indian premier Manmohan Singh and foreign secretary to come forward and settle the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan once and for all.

“If India’s claims of being the biggest democratic power in the world are true, then it should have solved the Kashmir issue,” said the MQM leader at a special event organised on Tuesday at Nine Zero to commemorate Kashmir Day. A large crowd had turned up with yellow and green striped flags of Azad Kashmir.

Sattar reiterated the party’s three-point agenda on Kashmir, saying that the dispute should be settled according to the wishes of its people. “Any decision against the wishes of Kashmiris would neither be acceptable to them nor to us.” Sattar said that the issue cannot be solved only by one side and that the authorities in New Delhi and Islamabad were both responsible for the fate of the Kashmiris.



He then started shouting the slogan ‘Jo faisala Kashmiri ka, wohi faisala Kashmir ka ‘(The decision of Kashmiris is the fate of Kashmir).

The MQM leader said that the event was being held at the residence of the party’s chief, Altaf Hussain, as the well-being of Kashmiris is very important to him. “The Kashmir dispute is as important to us as Nine Zero.”

The MQM leader said that if peace is restored in Kashmir, it can emerge as a popular tourist spot. “We want to remove barriers between disputed Kashmir and Azad Kashmir and make it the Switzerland of the East.”

He said that poor and deserving people, who are the true representatives of the masses, should be in the Azad Kashmir Assembly. “When will the people of Kashmir be free? That day will come when the country gives rid of its corrupt and feudal rulers, and there is real democracy in the country.”  The joint in charge of the party’s Kashmir Committee, Maroof Hussain said that thousands of people have sacrificed their lives and many are still suffering. He said that it is about time that the people decide their fate for themselves.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2013.