MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 11: Pro-independence Kashmiri organizations on Monday held rallies, public meetings and seminars across Azad Kashmir to mark the 18th death anniversary Maqbool Butt with a pledge to carry on his mission for liberating Kashmir.

Three separate programmes were held here under the aegis of the Students Liberation Front, National Students Federation and the All Parties National Alliance. Speakers paid rich tributes to the top freedom fighter for his heroic role as a path-finder of the freedom struggle, and vowed to thwart intrigues against the integrity and independence of Kashmir.

“Shaheed Maqbool Butt showed the enslaved Kashmiris the path to freedom. He sacrificed his life, but did not compromise on his ideology,” said Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Amanullah Khan at a seminar on ‘Maqbool Butt’s Role in Freedom Struggle’ held at AJK University Auditorium.

He said: “Though the movement was being impaired, and friends and foes were equally conspiring against it, yet it will succeed.”

The blood of Shaheed Maqbool Butt and other 80,000 martyrs would not go waste, and the time was coming when Kashmir would become free from both India and Pakistan, he said.

“India has resorted to extreme atrocities and the world community to apathy as far as the Kashmiris are concerned,” he said.