MUZAFFARABAD, March 5: Activists of a hard-line pro- independence organisation staged a demonstration here on Wednesday, calling upon the United Nations to play its role in recovery of the persons, particularly girls, who it alleged had been abducted during the devastating October 2005 earthquake.

The demonstration began from the main old city under the aegis of the National Students Federation (NSF), which advocates complete independence of Kashmir, and culminated outside the press club where the group leaders delivered fiery speeches.

While marching through the main thoroughfare, the NSF activists who were holding a big banner inscribed with an entreaty to the UN to “recover the missing persons,” also chanted similar slogans.

Speaking outside the press club, NSF district president Kamran Baig and other office-bearers blamed the Pakistani authorities for disappearance of Kashmiri girls hit by the devastating temblor.

“When our injured brothers and sisters were being airlifted to different Pakistani cities for treatment, no one took proper care of them which ultimately landed them in the hands of unscrupulous elements,” alleged Mr Baig.

The NSF had planned to deliver a memorandum to the UN observers in Muzaffarabad but as the police prevented its activists from marching beyond the press club, they torched the copy of memorandum to condemn the police action.

NSF president Mahmood Baig told this correspondent later in the evening that similar demonstrations were held by his group in several other towns of the state, including Rawalakot from where three female students of the AJK University, including the sister of a police official, were still missing.

“The families of these girls firmly believe that they have not died, as was claimed by a varsity official, but were kidnapped and forced to work in the brothels in Pakistan,” he claimed. He said the demonstration in Rawalakot was also addressed by the president of local bar association.

According to him, initially everyone would dismiss the disappearance of girls as mere allegations, but recent return of a Kashmiri girl to her hometown in Bagh and her revelations had proved that how “big catastrophe had hit the people of this part of Kashmir.”