By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Chairman, Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi has said that Modi’s expansionist agenda is bound to fail due to fragile economic situation. He said that India would never succeed in suppressing the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
He said that brave Kashmiri people were waging an unprecedented freedom struggle to get their legitimate right of self determination as per UNSC resolutions.
“India has deployed over 900,000 troops in IIOJK, but it will not be able to crush the nine million Kashmiris who are facing the worst human rights violations in the form of curfews, lockdown, tortured, disappearance and forcibly transferred to outside Kashmir since 446 days of military siege,” Afridi said, adding as we sat down at the Chambers of Kashmir Committee in the National Assembly building to discuss the Kashmiri freedom struggle as Kashmiris and Pakistanis are set to observe the Black Day being observed on October 27.
Shehryar Afridi who recently took over the charge of Kashmir Committee, has been very aggressively pushing the word Kashmir at all forums available.
Passionate about freedom of Kashmiri people, Afridi has a legacy of supporting Kashmiri freedom struggle as tribesmen from Tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Afridis, Wazirs, Mehdus and others had voluntarily fought alongside their Kashmiri brothers to liberate Azad Jammu & Kashmir.
“History tells us justice and equality are prerequisite to the World peace. Under its expansionist agenda, India has captured states Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Junagadh, Sikkum and others through misuse of power. Now India wants to consolidate its occupation on Kashmir. Pakistan won’t allow it. The United Nations must ensure Kashmiris get plebiscite,” he remarked. Dismayed over the callous silence of the world over the ongoing bloodbath of Muslims in Kashmir, particularly the mysterious silence of the Muslim world towards the increasing acts of religious violence in IIOJK, Afridi said it is a high time for the Muslims across the globe to raise voice for their brethren in occupied Kashmir who are suffering at the hands of the Indian fascist regime.
Highlighting the role of Kashmir committee, he said the Committee was actively engaging Parliamentarians and Kashmiri activists with our diaspora to raise global awareness on Kashmir.
“We left cultural front wide open in the past but now we will use culture as our arsenal.
Dymanics are changing and now Indians are requesting the UNSC to remove Kashmir from its agenda. It reflects Indians are facing a defeat at the UN and now they want to run away. But we won’t let them run from The UNSC,” he said.
He said that Pakistan is also raising concerns with the owners of the social media applications in wake of international media reports on Indian officials misuse of social media to gag voices on Kashmir.
Due to effective diplomacy, the Kashmir dispute was raised in the UNGA for three times after 55 years which is unprecedented success in our foreign policy front.
The sacrifices of Kashmiris and Imran Khan’s advocacy have internationalized the Kashmir dispute and today Kashmir has become a major issue in international forums, he added. Chairman Kashmir Committee said that Indian media and social media accounts were involved in malicious propaganda against Pakistani state institutions, maligning them of internal squabbling.
“The international community is urged to take note and condemn the spread of fake news by India targeting Pakistani state institutions,” he said. It was alarming sign that Indian government was running an ‘incessant witch-hunt’ campaign against the human rights organisations over ‘unfounded and motivated’ allegations.
He said United Nations Human Rights Council and other international human rights groups should provide immediate security, assistance to HR groups working in India covered India’s systematic genocide of Dalits, Christians and Muslims and Kashmiri Muslims.
He alleged that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS), a Hindu terrorist outfit, has been receiving funding from Indian diaspora based in dozens of countries from across the globe. “The global financial watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) must take measures to combat money laundering and terror financing to the Hindu terror outfits,” he demanded.
He said that since three nuclear powers including Pakistan, China and India were major players in the region, any misadventure on Kashmir may jeopardize regional peace, affecting more than half of the world’s population. Pakistan is endeavoring to maintain peace in South Asia and it had fought biggest war on land against terrorism and defeated it, he said while urging the United Nations to stop genocide of Kashmiris and war crimes in IIOJK before it was too late.
Commenting on the illegal and unilateral action of Indian government to abrogate the Article 35-A and 370 on August,05, last year, he said Narendra Modi’s malicious intent was aimed at converting IIOJK into a Hindu-majority area and deprive Kashmiris of the political and administrative strength that comes with being a majority in their own land. He said the recent moves by Indian military regime proved that the demographic change plan has a principal component of efforts to damage the identity and cultural fabric and heritage of Kashmir.
The abrogation of Kashmir’s special status as a semi-autonomous region was unacceptable to every Kashmiri and they would struggle to have the status restored, he said.
Shehryar Afridi said the movement of Kashimiri people for self-determination has entered into its logical point and soon the world would recognize the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiri people. Afridi said the world has realized the violation of the basic human rights in IIOJK and nothing can suppress the freedom movement of the Kashmiri people, he concluded.
