MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider has called upon the world to take notice of India’s illegal act of bifurcating occupied Jammu and Kashmir in flagrant violation of the United Nations’ Security Council resolutions.

“Scrapping special status of Jammu and Kashmir and splitting it into two ‘union territories’ must not go unheeded at the international level,” he said at a meeting of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Cell (JKLC) here on Friday.

“The strong resistance shown by the people of Jammu and Ladakh against this move is a proof that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir has rejected attempts by Mr Narendra Modi to grab the land of the disputed region,” he said.

Mr Haider said that India must remember that it would never succeed in subduing the Kashmiris through the use of brute force and that Kashmiris would continue their struggle till eviction of the last Indian soldier from their motherland.

The AJK prime minister said that India was an extremist country and its fanatic rulers had put the global peace at stake.

“The international community should also take serious stock of lockdown, curfew and other human rights abuses in the occupied territory,” he said.

Mr Haider stressed that the entire Kashmiri nation should demand freedom from India with one voice.

“Our unanimous narrative will help us advance our struggle to its logical conclusion,” he said.

Mr Haider exhorted the JKLC to play a proactive role, beyond ritualistic steps, in the situation prevailing in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“You should evolve a comprehensive strategy to highlight the longstanding dispute in its true perspective across the globe,” he said to officials of the institution which was raised in late eighties to project the struggle of Kashmiri people throughout the world.

The meeting was informed by JKLC secretary Mansoor Qadir Dar that the “first international Kashmir conference” being jointly organised by Islamabad-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and Muzaffarabad-based Policy and Research Forum Jammu and Kashmir (PRFJK) would be held here on Nov 27-28.

Preparations for the conference were afoot and different sub-committees were looking after all issues related to the event, the JKLC secretary said. He told the premier that renowned researchers, intellectuals, political personalities and other prominent figures were being invited to the event on behalf of the AJK government.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2019