MUZAFFARABAD: Leaders of three main opposition parties in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly lashed out on Friday at the PML-N governments in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad for “pushing the opposition to the wall and ignoring Kashmir issue for personal interests”.

They particularly cited the visit of Indian business tycoon Sajjan Jindal to Murree and said it not only made a “mockery of the National Action Programme but had also hurt the sentiments of Kashmiris”.

These observations were made at a press conference addres­sed by Leader of the Opposition Chau­­dhry Moham­mad Yasin and former AJK premier Chaudhry Abdul Majeed of the PPP, Malick Muhammad Nawaz of the Muslim Conference (MC) and Abdul Majid Khan of the PTI.

“The PML-N had made tall claims about good governance, but they cannot cite a single step over the past nine months that falls in this category,” Mr Yasin said. He alleged that statements of PM Raja Farooq Haider about the opposition were marked by “prejudice and calumny, in sharp disregard to the decorum of the office he is holding”.

“The way he behaves is unbecoming of even a layman,” Mr Yasin said of the AJK premier.

Regarding the recent assembly session, he said the government had convened it to discuss the Kashmir issue but made it controversial by tabling several resolutions in praise of Nawaz Sharif.

PTI MLA Majid Khan alleged that the major chunk of the official handout about the assembly session comprised flattery of Mr Sharif, rather than what it had expressed about Kashmir freedom struggle.

“That handout alone was enough to prove that the actual purpose of the session was to flatter Mr Sharif and not to discuss the alarming situation in held Kashmir,” he said.

The PTI lawmaker alleged that Mr Haider-led government had pushed the opposition to the wall.

The MC MLA said though he was an opponent of the PPP, unlike the present PML-N government, the previous PPP government had not withheld the share in development schemes, etc, of the then opposition.

Former premier Majeed dubbed Prime Minister Haider an “incorrigible” person who, he alleged, was bent upon vitiating the political atmosphere in the state. “While the Kashmiris are undergoing mass slaughter at the hands of Indian government, the PML-N leadership in Pakistan is bolstering its business interests and personal friendships (with Indian business leaders),” he lamented.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2017