MUZAFFARABAD: Senior Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has urged the chief minister of the India-held Jammu and Kashmir to publicly acknowledge that it is a disputed region.

“If puppet chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is sincere to the Kashmiris, he should publicly declare that Jammu and Kashmir is not an integral part of India but an internationally recognised disputed region,” said the octogenarian leader at a rally in Srinagar’s Haiderpura neighbourhood on Wednesday.

Read: Kashmiri leader waves Pakistani flag at rally in Srinagar

It was his first rally in Srinagar after the 2010 summer agitation, which saw the death of over 100 youths at the hands of Indian forces.

The rally was seen live by journalists at the Muzaffarabad Press Club, courtesy arrangements made by the Pasban-i-Hurriyat, an organisation of post-1990 migrants living in different camps in Azad Kashmir.

When he arrived at the venue, Mr Geelani was warmly received by his supporters who were waving flags of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference as well as the national flag of Pakistan. Pro-freedom and pro-Pakistan slogans were also raised repeatedly.

Pakistan flag waved, pro-Pakistan slogans raised at Srinagar rally

On the controversial issue of resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits in separate townships, Mr Geelani said it was a well-planned conspiracy of the Indian government aimed at changing the demography of the Muslim majority state.

“Muslims, Sikhs, Pandits and people of other faiths have been living in Jammu and Kashmir in harmony for centuries. The move by the Indian government to create separate townships for one particular community (the Pandits) is aimed at killing two birds with one stone,” he remarked.

He said that India had unlawfully occupied the state, which had been opposed by the Kashmiris from day one. “We will continue to oppose Indian occupation because we are linked with Pakistan religiously and ideologically,” he said.

The ailing leader, who has returned to Srinagar from New Delhi after over three months, reiterated that Kashmir was not a border dispute between India and Pakistan. It was a trilateral issue, with Kashmiris being the principal party, he said.

“We want to make it clear to India and the rest of the world that unless we achieve our right to self-determination as envisaged in the United Nations Security Council resolutions, we will continue our struggle,” he declared.

Mr Geelani said the government in Srinagar was hoodwinking the Kashmiris into believing that peace had been established in the state. Peace cannot be established in the presence of more than 700,000 Indian occupation forces, which enjoy unbridled powers to subject Kashmiris to the worst forms of atrocities.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2015

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