MUZAFFARABAD: A multiparty conference (MPC) held on the invitation of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider on Wednesday threw its weight behind measures enforced by the government to contain the pandemic in the region.

According to a joint declaration issued at the end of the MPC in Kashmir House, Islamabad, the participants expressed their trust in all the steps taken so far by the [AJK] government to control the viral disease in its administered area, terming them “timely and result-oriented”.

The participants also agreed to the “standard operating procedures” (SOPs) issued by the government in consultation with the prayer leaders and religious scholars for amendments in the order of rows as well as positions of the faithful during prayers in mosques during Ramazan.

The participants agreed to continue the ban on inter-provincial and intra-district movement, in addition to supporting the proposed business hours and SOPs for factories and markets to restore economic activity.

They also resolved to take into account the problems as well as practicable suggestions of the business community.

The participants further agreed with the proposed plan of the government regarding the AJK nationals returning or arriving from foreign countries.

Held Kashmir

The MPC expressed concern over the situation in held Kashmir, particularly after Aug 5, and called upon the international community to stop India from taking benefit of the situation across the globe in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“India-occupied Kashmir has been under a dreadful lockdown and suppression of all political and civic rights since Aug 5 last year … During this period India has lodged thousands of Kashmiris, mostly youngsters, behind notorious prisons and has been rehabilitating non-Kashmiris in the disputed territory after amending the citizenship law to change the demography of the Muslim majority state. The last step has been brazenly taken at a time when the world at large is focused on containing the pandemic. All this warrants urgent attention and intervention of the United Nations, P5 nations and member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation,” the declaration said.

The MPC expressed concern over the alarming increase in the number of Covid-19 patients in held Kashmir due to the “horrifying lockdown and cruel policies of BJP government”.

Dismissing the Indian army’s propaganda that Pakistan was pushing Covid-19 patients to AJK, the MPC maintained that Pakistan Army had instead extended full cooperation to AJK’s civil administration for successful enforcement of the lockdown. This had subsequently helped the latter control the situation regarding spread of Covid-19.

The MPC was also attended and addressed by AJK President Sardar Masood Khan and Legislative Assembly speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir.

Prominent among other participants were two former prime ministers, Barrister Sultan Mehmood, regional head of PTI, and Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, former head of Muslim Conference, Jamaat-i-Islami chief Dr Khalid Mahmood, Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party chief Sardar Hassan Ibrahim, and PPP’s regional secretary general and former minister Raja Faisal Rathore.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2020