LAHORE, Feb 5: Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Gilani has expressed his gratitude for the solidarity being shown for Kashmiris by Pakistanis.

“This (show of solidarity) has once again proved that the Pakistanis and Kashmiris are part of one nation,” he said while addressing a rally here on Tuesday by phone.

He regretted that neither the UN nor the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) was active in resolving the Kashmir dispute.

Gilani said the present rulers’ attempt to cling to power was the sole reason behind the problems Pakistan was facing at the moment.

Another Kashmiri leader, Shabbir Shah, who also addressed the rally said they were inheritors of martyrs and would never allow any vested interest to cash in on their sacrifices.

Jamaatud Daawa, a pro-Jihad religious outfit which organised the rally, blamed India for sabotage acts in the country. It advised the government to give New Delhi a suitable response in occupied Kashmir.

Speaking at a rally, JD chief Prof Hafiz Muhammad Saeed asked the government to unite all parties on a platform for consulting and announcing Jihad for the liberation of Kashmir.

Referring to President Musharraf’s stance that only a state could declare Jihad, Hafiz Saeed asked what the subjects would do when the state was ready to surrender itself to slavery.

He warned New Delhi that it should stop dreaming of peace in the region without solving the decades-old Kashmir dispute.

Opposing the ongoing ceasefire on the Line of Control, he said a similar arrangement in 1948 had damaged the cause as India had occupied several areas liberated by the Mujahideen in the war while the truce resulted in fencing of the LoC by New Delhi.