Kashmiris hold rallies, demonstrations in Muzaffarabad: Right to Self Determination Day
By Our Staff Correspondent
MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 5: Kashmiri people staged rallies and demonstrations on Wednesday to mark the 'Right to Self Determination Day' and reminded the world bodies
, especially the United Nations, of the non-compliant of its decades-old commitment regarding a plebiscite in the disputed Himalayan region.
On Jan 5, 1949, the UN Security Council had passed a resolution, envisaging right to self-determination for the Kashmiris to decide accession of their divided state to India or Pakistan on their own free will.
In Muzaffarabad, a rally was taken out from the press club at the conclusion of a public meeting which was addressed among others by AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat, Jammu Kashmir Libeartion League leader Manzoor Qadir, APHC AJK chapter leader Advocate Pervez Ahmed and refugee leader Raja Izhar Khan.
Participants of the rally, chanting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans, marched up to the UN Military Observers office where the leaders delivered a memorandum. Participants were also holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans condemning India's denial of right to self-determination to the Kashmiris and also the atrocities let loose by its forces in the occupied territory.
Earlier, speaking at the public meeting, Mr Hayat said that India had forcefully occupied the territory of Kashmir, but the Kashmiri people had never accepted its occupation.
AJK territory, he said, was liberated after a great struggle "but this freedom was incomplete without the liberation of the remaining part of the state under Indian occupation".
"I assure the people of held Kashmir that we can never show any negligence towards freedom," he said. The prime minister pointed out that Pakistan's own survival was linked to Kashmir because its lands were verdant due to waters flowing from Kashmir.
Mr Hayat regretted that there had been attempts for the past 3 years to "damage the system and structure" in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir. "Those who are trying to change the system in AJK are unwise," the PM said, adding that right to self determination did not only apply to held Kashmir but also to the AJK.
"If anything has to be done in AJK or Northern Areas, it should be done through the political parties of the two areas." Separately, activists of Jamaat-i-Islami also took out a rally from their main office near Eidgah which was led by MNA Dr Farid Ahmed Piracha.
Speaking to JI activists, Mr Piracha said Jihad was the only solution to Kashmir issue and military training should be made compulsory in all educational institutions.
