MUZAFFARABAD: Dozens of Kashmiri activists staged a demonstration on Tuesday to condemn the ongoing massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the alleged silence of the international community on the issue.

“The Kashmiris and Rohingyas are the biggest victims of terrorism in today’s world,” read a large banner which was being carried by protesters as they marched from Burhan Wani Chowk to Garhipan Chowk.

“Why are the United Nations (UN), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and international community silent [on the situation in Myanmar],” further read the banner with a photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi, the state counsellor of Myanmar and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shaking hands and was marked with a cross, on the right corner.

The demonstration was organised by Pasban-i-Hurriyat Jammu Kash­mir (PHJK), a group of post-1990 migrants from India-held Kashmir.

The demonstrators chanted slogans against the government and armed forces of Myanmar for unleashing atrocities on Rohingya Muslims because of their religious beliefs.

At the end of the rally, they torched effigies of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Ashin Wirathu, the spiritual leader of the anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

Speaking on the occasion, PHJK’s leader Uzair Ahmed Ghazali said that the Kashmiris were deeply disturbed by the violent persecution of Rohingya men, women and children in the most criminal and cruel way.

“In fact, after witnessing the harrowing video clips we cannot help but say that savagery is a small word for what the so-called nonviolent Buddhist monks and the Burmese army are doing to the Rohingyas,” he said.

“We can feel their pain and sufferings because we are also going through a similar situation at the hands of the Indian army in held Kashmir,” he added.

Mr Ghazali lamented that the mass genocide in Myanmar was being carried out under the nose of a Nobel laureate and it was exceptionally painful as the “self-proclaimed champions of human rights and the United Nations” remained silent.

“They do not waste a fraction of a second when it comes to condemning Muslims for the slightest act of violence attributed to them anywhere in the world but in the case of Myanmar they are maintaining a criminal silence on incessant incidents of burning Rohingya Muslims alive, beheading their children and raping their women,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2017