October 25, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 12, 1428

MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 24: As the international community commemorated the United Nations Day on Wednesday, Azad Jammu and Kashmir acting president Shah Ghulam Qadir reminded the UN of its responsibility and urged the world body to take measures to stop massacre of the Kashmiris and resolve the lingering issue.

“Today when the UN Day is being commemorated across the globe, we make an appeal to the world body as well as the international community to take steps to get the massacre and atrocities in Kashmir stopped and find a solution to the lingering problem in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiris,” he said.

Speaking at a police parade held here to mark the AJK’s 60th Foundation Day, Mr Qadir recalled that it was India itself which took Kashmir issue to the UN and pledged right to self-determination to the Kashmiris before the international community.

“But sixty years on, India has been delaying the fulfilment of that promise under one or the other pretext,” he lamented.

The Indian forces, he said, had erected fences and bunkers in the civilian populations which were perpetrating worst kind of atrocities on Kashmiris in violation of the UN Charter and Geneva Convention.

Pointing out that the Kashmir issue was the unfinished agenda of the partition of the Subcontinent, the acting president recalled that by adopting the historic accession to Pakistan resolution on July 19, 1947, the people of Kashmir had decided to accede to Pakistan much before the emergence of the Islamic republic.

The All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, he asserted, had been safeguarding the ideological frontiers of Pakistan after the liberation of this territory because a strong and powerful Pakistan guaranteed the success of Kashmir freedom movement.

Appreciating the Kashmir policy of the government of Pakistan as unequivocal and resounding, Mr Qadir said it had boosted the morale of Kashmiris. In this regard, he referred to the launching of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and opening of other crossing points along the Line of Control.