Karachi stands with Kashmir in solidarity

Religious and political parties organised rallies, demonstrations and sessions across Karachi on Monday to express solidarity with the resistance movement in Kashmir against Indian occupation. The programmes were arranged to observe Kashmir Solidarity Day.  

No more ‘do more’: JI

Speaking to his party’s rally, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said if the people of Kashmir were given their right of self-determination, the long-standing conflict could be solved within months.

“The United Nations [UN], by not ensuring implementation on its own resolutions [about Kashmir], has become a criminal,” remarked Rehman. “More than 100,000 Kashmiris, including the young, the old, women and children, have been killed in the Indian oppression.”

Expressing the JI’s stance on the issue, he said Kashmir Day was first observed by his party, under its former chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, when they called for a strike in 1990. Since then it has been observed every year, he added.

He criticised the incumbent government, saying they did not put up a considerable fight on the Kashmir issue and were only interested in doing business with India. Nor are Muslim leaders around the world able to take it up at international forums, he added.

“Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif must listen: Pakistan and India can never be one,” he said. He claimed the Sharif brothers were helping India, and asked them to leave the country and join Narendra Modi if they were that interested in paving the way for better ties with the neighbouring country while the Kashmir issue was being kept on the backburner.

The JI leader also made a jibe at the United States, saying it was campaigning against Pakistan on India’s beseeching. “There should be no more ‘do more’. All of us should converge on a platform against it.”

UN must take action: PTI

Addressing his party’s rally, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Haleem Adil Sheikh vowed that PTI chief Imran Khan would complete the mission of securing independence for Kashmir.

“The struggle and sacrifices of Kashmiris will not be in vain, as independence is their birthright,” he said, adding that Kashmir’s liberation from oppression was the only way to secure peace in South Asia. “The UN must play its role.”

Don’t politicise issue: PSP

Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chief Mustafa Kamal said Kashmiris had been committed to fighting for their independence since the past seven decades and had not surrendered before Indian atrocities.

“This generation will see Kashmir becoming an independent state,” he hoped, saying that Pakistan’s support to them must not waver at any point, as India was investing heavily, militarily and through other means, to subdue them.

Kamal said that to achieve its nefarious objectives, India instigated terrorism in Karachi through Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain. People were killed in this city in ethnic and sectarian violence, he added.

“We fought against Altaf Hussain for being an Indian agent,” the PSP chief said, claiming that due to his efforts, the 22-year-long investment of India in Karachi was sabotaged. “Our concerns proved true to the public when Altaf Hussain chanted anti-Pakistan slogans.”

He advised the government against politicising the Kashmir issue, and urged it to expedite its efforts to take up the case through parliamentary committees because they had no significance otherwise.  

‘Champion of democracy’

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan said to a rally that India claimed to be a champion of democracy while it continued to oppress Kashmiris.

He also contradicted the JI’s claim of being the first party to call for observing Kashmir Day, saying it was Nawaz Sharif who had first marked the day back in 1990. He mentioned that India had deployed 700,000 of its troops in Kashmir to maintain its occupation, saying that such rallies would provide an impetus to the global struggle for Kashmir. Until the issue is resolved, relations between Pakistan and India can never improve, he added.