MUZAFFARABAD: People across Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Tuesday observed 75th“Accession to Pakistan Day” to renew their unwavering affiliation with Pakistan and vowed to leave no stone unturned to translate the dreams of Kashmiri martyrs to overthrow India’s illegal occupation of their motherland.

Rallies and other events were held in different parts of state to mark the day which commemorates the passage of a resolution on July 19, 1947 by the Working Committee of All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference at its meeting in Srinagar whereby it had called for the Muslim majority state’s accession to the yet-to-be-created dominion of Pakistan.

In Muzaffarabad, a rally was taken out by Pasban-i-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir (PHJK), an organisation of post-1989 migrants from the India occupied territory, to manifest their hatred for India and love for Pakistan.

“In relation to Islam, we are Pakistanis and Pakistan is ours,” read a quote of Syed Ali Shah Geelani on a banner participants of the rally were holding.

The rally began from Garhi Pan Chowk and concluded at Burhan Wani Chowk outside the local press club, amid loud pro-freedom and anti-India chants.

“When the Kashmiri youths wave Pakistani flags in front of Indian bullets and bayonets and when the coffins of martyrs are draped with Pakistani flags, it’s the renewal of the intellectual commitment with Pakistan and the July 19 resolution,” said PHJK chief Uzair Ahmed Ghazali in his address on the occasion.

Speaking at a function held inside the press club, AJK minister for local government and rural development Khawaja Farooq Ahmed maintained that Pakistan Accession Day was a reflection of an unbreakable relationship between the Kashmiri people and Pakistan.

“Geographically, linguistically and religiously, the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of Pakistan,” he asserted.

Mr Ahmed, who also heads the AJK government’s committee for national events, maintained that the freedom movement in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir had started in the wake of the accession resolution.

He asked the state-run Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Commission to publish booklets related to such national events and distribute them to the public so that the history of these days could be enlightened in the true sense.

He said love for Pakistan was in the blood of Kashmiris which India had failed to eliminate despite employing brute force having no parallel across the world.

He also paid tributes to the incarcerated Kashmiri leaders and youths in occupied Kashmir and India and called upon the international community to use its good offices for their immediate and unconditional release as well as the ultimate settlement of the core issue of Kashmir.

Meanwhile, in a statement from Islamabad, AJK Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas also expressed hope that the people of India occupied Kashmir would soon overthrow the shackles of India’s forcible occupation.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2022