LAHORE, Sept 6 The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has described the Gilgit-Baltistan package announced by the federal government as a conspiracy against the freedom movement of Kashmir and rejected it.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, JKLF Pakistan chapter president Syed Faisal Nazki, Voice of Kashmir president Hafiz Ghulam Nabi Lone and Gilgit-Baltistan human rights activist Abid Gilgiti said the government should cancel the Gilgit-Baltistan package and place the area under a revolutionary council comprising the representatives of all political parties which should administer its affairs till the freedom of occupied Kashmir from the Indian yoke.

They said the package was not to give autonomy to the region but turn it into a colony of Pakistan instead. The plan was not acceptable to the people of Kashmir as it was a part of the four-point agenda of General Pervez Musharraf (retired) and back channel diplomacy.

They said the JKLF would protest against the package outside Pakistani embassies in London, New York, Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid and Hong Kong after holdings seminars on it in different cities of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. It would also organise a long march to Islamabad and stage a sit-in in front of the parliament on Oct 22 to press for withdrawal of the package.

Kissan Board The Kissan Board Pakistan has criticised decrease in paddy procurement price announced for year 2009-10 and demanded its review.

Expressing disappointment over the support price, board secretary-general Malik Ramzan Rohari said that Super Basmati support price had been fixed Rs1,250 per 40 kg whereas it was Rs1,500 per 40 kg last year.

Similarly, Basmati support price had been reduced for Rs1,250 per 40 kg to Rs1,000 per 40 kg and IRRI-6 from Rs700 per 40 kg to Rs600 per 40 kg. The government had announced the support price but had not announced the procurement policy.

He said that there was no justification in reduction in support price because not only the prices of fertilizers and diesel had increased considerably but electricity tariff had also been revised upwards. The government should immediately review the support price because it would discourage paddy sowing resulting in shortage of rice next year.