ON an earlier visit to India-held Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that he had a vision of the state where he saw books instead of guns in the hands of Kashmiri boys and girl. Instead the Kashmiri people were subjected to further brutality. The Indian occupation forces shoot at funeral processions, use pellet guns to willfully maim and blind civilians protesting against Indian rule of their land.

If India feels it lives in the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people, why has New Delhi tried to get the British government to cancel the International Kashmir conference at the House of Commons by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Pakistan (APPG-Pakistan) which wants to expose the Indian occupation forces brutalities in Kashmir?

Pakistan will continue to extend political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people’s struggle for their right to self-determination.

Engr Faisal Raheed

Lahore

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2019