ISLAMABAD: President Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Sardar Masood Khan Friday vowed to continue struggle against Indian subjugation through peaceful ways on all fronts, including the media.
Talking to the media about his visit to the United Kingdom, he said India could never suppress the voice of Kashmiris. “A total of 1.4 million expatriate Kashmiris and Pakistanis were living in the United Kingdom, who should jointly raise the issue at international level by highlighting the Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir.” He said his visit to United Kingdom was productive and successful. “People of the UK and other country’s authorities must press India to resolve the core issue of Kashmir amicably. The UK was told that they had responsibilities for resolving the issue of Kashmir,” he said.
During his stay in UK, the President also addressed students and faculty at the University of Lancaster, the sixth in the top ranking universities in the UK, on the topic Global Governance and World Peace.
He also spoke as the chief guest at a Kashmir Conference in London organised by the Pakistan and Kashmir Supreme Council; and attended and addressed a gathering to mark the Black Day on Kashmir organised by the Pakistan’s Consulate General in Manchester.
Shortly after arriving in London on November 18, he addressed a fundraiser hosted by a UK-based organisation Quest for Education, which is supporting Kashmir Education Foundation’s schools in Basali (near Rawat) and Banjosa (AJK).
The president briefed and updated the All Parties Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kashmir, led by Chris Leslie, about the latest spree of killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, extrajudicial killings, custodial killings, enforced disappearances, vandalisation of Kashmiris property, molestation of women and sinister moves to change the demography of the occupied territory.
The president told the APPG that in Jammu, too, the situation was becoming alarming as RSS militants, under the banner of Hindutva, were threatening Muslims with a pogrom and systematised killings. “In Jammu, village defence committees had been established in which hundreds of Hindutva militants were being recruited to target Muslims for which head money had been announced.” He said the scenario of another massacre of Muslims was not hypothetical. In 1947, 237,000 Muslims were massacred by RSS militants; and half a million were forced to flee to Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. That massacre is still a scar on the history of South Asia.
He said that the APPG pledged to work in a systematic manner not only to raise awareness about Kashmir but also to prepare ground for practical steps.
At the University of Lancaster, President Masood Khan said that global governance must be guided by the rule of law, not by the might of the powerful nations. He said that the issue of Kashmir must be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people and as decided by the United Nations Security Council. He said that this issue should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, not through coercion. “If it is not resolved, there was a huge risk of a catastrophic war because both India and Pakistan were nuclear armed states.”
Published in Daily Times, November 25th 2017.
