05 June 2004	Saturday	16 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

LAHORE, June 4: The Lahore High Court Bar Association on Friday urged the government to review its Kashmir policy which, it said, compromised its decades-old principled stand as well as the UN resolutions.

The demand was made in a resolution moved by LHCBA Kashmir Committee chairperson Advocate Abid Aziz Rajoari and unanimously adopted by the bar to express concern over government's flexibility on Kashmir.

"The new Kashmir policy is a conspiracy against the integrity of Pakistan," the resolution said, adding that the government had compromised its consistent stand on the core issue only for the sake of friendship with India and under the dictates of a 'superpower'.

It was for the first time, according to the resolution, that Islamabad was showing total indifference to the atrocities which the Indian occupation forces were committing against the Kashmiris fighting to liberate their motherland from foreign rule.

Emboldened by Pakistan's U-turn, the resolution said, New Delhi was fast raising a barbed wire along the Line of Control in sheer violation of the UN resolution which accepted Kashmir's disputed status.

It demanded that the government should clarify whether it wanted to continue to support the freedom struggle in Kashmir or yield to the dictates of the 'superpower'.

The resolution said that Islamabad must try to convince the Indian government that resolution of the Kashmir conflict, the core issue, would alone ensure peace and friendship in the region.

It said the indigenous movement for a free motherland had entered a decisive phase where the entire world was now realising the sensitivity of the 57-year old conflict. But it was deplorable that the Pakistan government, instead of enhancing its level of support for the freedom struggle, wanted to wriggle out of the situation.

The people of Kashmir, according to the resolution, had braved extreme atrocities and withstood genocide by the occupation forces for 15 years. Any compromise at this stage would mean treason, it maintained. The resolution also paid tributes to the people of Kashmir for successfully boycotting all stages of the recent Indian elections.