MUZAFFARABAD, July 19: Ruling Muslim Conference in Azad Kashmir on Tuesday reaffirmed its support to the idea of Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan but a hard-line pro-independence group staged a rally to denounce accession either to Pakistan or India. A public meeting was held in the premises of old civil secretariat under the aegis of Kashmir Liberation Cell to mark “Accession of Kashmir Resolution Day”. It was presided over by AJK’s acting Prime Minister Syed Mumtaz Ali Gillani while former PM Sardar Abdul Qayyum was chief guest.

The MC, then sole representative party of Kashmiri Muslims, had demanded, through a resolution passed by its general council in Srinagar on July 19, 1947, that the Muslim majority state of Kashmir should be annexed to Pakistan.

Whenever in power in AJK, the party marks the day by declaring official holiday and holding public meetings.

“That was the right decision of the Kashmiri Muslims’ sole representative party in view of the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s geographical, religious and cultural links with Pakistan,” said Mr Gillani in his speech.

“The idea of accession of Kashmir to Pakistan runs in our blood,” he said, asserting that the ongoing struggle was aimed at accession and not at independence. “We will not commit any betrayal with the blood of martyrs.”

In his speech, Sardar Abdul Qayyum censured pro-independence elements, saying their “impracticable idea” was nothing but a “perceptual comfort.”

Sardar Qayyum, who has recently supported the idea of “United States of Kashmir”, emphatically said he did not subscribe the idea of independent Kashmir.

“Those who say that Muslim Conference has deviated from its ideology will soon come to know that it’s not true. We fully stand by our ideology; it is part of our faith”, he said and added: “We have never been in power for the sake of power but for the sake of service”.

However, pro-independence National Students Federation (NSF) took to the streets to denounce the July 19, 1947 resolution as a “hoax” which, according to it, had “distanced real freedom from the Kashmiris”.

Carrying banners, placards and red and black flags, the NSF activists took out their rally from Upper Adda which paraded through traditional routes before terminating at the office of UN Military Observers.

“The resolution is a curse to Kashmiris’ struggle for independence,” read a big banner whereas a placard said: “No India, no Pakistan, we want free Kashmir”.

“India and Pakistan should realise that accession of Kashmir to any of the two states is not practicable. Instead they should let us (Kashmiris) live as an independent and sovereign nation,” said NSF president Kashan Masood, as he delivered a protest note at the UN office.