MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 5: The people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir staged rallies, public meetings and demonstrations on Saturday to press the United Nations to implement its resolutions on Kashmir so that durable peace could be ensured in South Asia.

The rallies and demonstrations were held to mark Jan 5 as the “right to self-determination day” as on the same day in 1949, the UN Security Council passed a resolution pledging a free, fair and impartial plebiscite in Kashmir to determine its future status.

In Muzaffarabad, a big public meeting was held at the Old Civil Secretariat, which was attended by hundreds of people, including government officials and workers of various political parties.

The demonstrators held high banners, depicting the plight of the Kashmiris and supporting their right to self-determination.

Those who spoke at the public meeting included AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, former senior minister and AJKPP leader Sahibzada Ishaq Zafar, Sheikh Aqeelur Rehman of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Mahmoodul Hassan Ashraf of the AJK JUI, Kifayat Hussain Naqvi of the AJK Tehrik-i-Jafria, AJKPP leader and former deputy speaker Syed Shaukat Naqvi and AJK ministers Syed Mumtaz Gillani, Mufti Mansoorur Rehman and Masood Khalid.

They regretted that the Kashmiris had been awaiting implementation of the UN resolutions for 53 years, but the UN had not held the plebiscite pledged in the resolutions.

The prime minister called upon the UN to press India to resolve the dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions.

“United Nations should immediately intervene in Kashmir, ask India to de-escalate tension by pulling out its troops along the cease-fire line and the international boundary with Pakistan”, he said and urged Islamabad and New Delhi to talk to work out measures for the implementation of the resolutions.

He also urged the big powers to play their role in saving the South Asian region from the holocaust of a nuclear war. “The peace of the whole world is at stake due to obduracy and jingoism of Indian leaders. If the world community remained silent, a disastrous war could break out any time.”

Later, the participants of the rally marched up to the UN Military Observers’s office, where they delivered a ritual memorandum.

Officials said hundreds of people had participated in rallies in Mirpur, Kotli, Bagh and other major and small towns of Azad Kashmir to draw the attention of the world community towards the denial of the right to self-determination to the Kashmiris despite the passage of more than half a century.

The activists of a pro-independence Kashmiri students’ group staged an anti-war rally here, calling upon both India and Pakistan to quit Kashmir to pave the way for peace in the region.