KARACHI, June 7: The Jamaat-i-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, has urged the government not to accept any pressure to bargain on Pakistan’s principled stand on the issue of Kashmir and warned that any sign of weakness could cost the country its freedom.

“The only way to stop war is to have full preparation to meet the challenges”, he said, and announced to hold a massive rally on June 16 at the Minaar-i-Pakistan to demonstrate that the nation was united to meet any Indian challenge.

The JI chief was speaking at a seminar on: Kashmir Issue - Forward or Retreat”, at Karachi Press Club on Friday evening, which was organised by the Jamaat-i-Islami.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad said that the issue of Kashmir is an incomplete agenda of the partition of the subcontinent which has yet to be resolved through a plebiscite by the people of the valley.

He blamed Britain for the constant tension in the region and added that it was due to the fact that Britain awarded a Muslim district of Punjab to India giving the enemy a permanent physical access to the valley.

Castigating the British Foreign Secretary’s statement in which he had termed the UN resolutions on Kashmir obsolete, the JI chief said that had the Kashmir issue been resolved to the satisfaction of the people of Kashmir, only then the UN resolutions would have been irrelevant.

But when the intensity of the issue has been continuing, terming the UN resolutions irrelevant only indicated a pro-Indian attitude of Britain similar to that of the US, he pointed out.

He criticized the government for siding with the US in targeting the people of Afghanistan and its government which, he claimed, were the defenders of our western border and where now the US, British and European soldiers, in collaboration with the government, were deployed in the tribal areas and where instead of peace, lawlessness has become order of the day, he remarked.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed recalled that at that time the decision to support the US repression and bombardment on Afghanistan was justified by saying that by backing the US action we have saved ourselves and the Kashmir issue.

He said we have forewarned the government that the policy instead of saving us would lead to our disaster as the US action was not against Afghanistan but was against the Muslim ummah. Although the US had termed Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan an “axis of evil”, its next target would be Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear power, he feared.

The JI chief lamented that the US commandos were being led by the Pakistan Army for conducting raids in tribal areas and madressahs where in the past even Pakistan army could not dare to enter.

This action was followed by banning Jehadi organisations which had served Pakistan as its vanguard and fought against the enemy shoulder-to-shoulder with the Pakistan Army. But now those Mujahideen are being sent behind the bars without any reasons only to stop them from challenging the enemy and block them from fighting alongside the Kashmiri Mujahideen, he added.

He said after promoting secular movements in the country the Indian army had been deployed on our borders and the US had been forcing Pakistan to accept the Line of Control (LoC) as a sacred line and start joint patrolling to stop Kashmiris Muslims from crossing the border and jointly crush them from waging their struggle for independence.

Pointing out that peace could not be restored without justice and fairplay, he said peace could only be guaranteed in the region by giving the Kashmiris their due rights.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed lamented that Pakistan had buried Kashmir in Tashkant and the last nails were poked in its coffin in the Simla Accord in which, he said, the ceasefire line was declared to be the Line of Control. But even that did not solve the issue as the basic issue was that the people of Kashmir wanted their liberation and this problem could not be solved by building pressure on Kashmir as, he added, neither the government nor the army could afford to compromise on the principled stand.