ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has called for converting “trade routes” with India into “aid routes” to provide relief to people affected by floods in India-held Kashmir.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after meetings with representatives of various political parties from India-held Kashmir, he said: “This is a proposal that the trade routes with India should be opened as aid routes.”

Mr Haq said Kashmiris living on the other side of the Line of Control had suffered huge losses in one of the worst floods in the region’s history.

He claimed that Indian troops were providing relief only to tourists and local people were still awaiting help.

The JI chief urged the government of Pakistan to draw attention of the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to the suffering of Kashmiri people and seek international help for them.

He said the Pakistani government should do intense lobbying at international level for seeking help for people of held Kashmir.

Mr Haq said his party did not want to see friendship with India without the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

“Friendship with India is not acceptable in any case without the resolution of the Kashmir issue. And that too, in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir,” he said.

Asking the government to clarify its Kashmir policy, the JI chief urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to raise the issue in his forthcoming address to the UN General Assembly.

He questioned silence of rulers over the Kashmir issue and termed it a betrayal of Kashmiris.

Mr Haq said it was perhaps because of its appeasement policy that the government was hesitant to raise the Kashmir issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He regretted that neither the prime minister nor any federal minister had talked about floods in India-held Kashmir during the recent joint session of parliament.

He claimed that opposition parties had tried to move a resolution to express sympathy with people affected by flooding in held Kashmir, but the government did not show seriousness.

The JI chief claimed that 5.5 million people had been affected by flood in held Kashmir and 700,000 of them were still under the open sky and waiting for help.

Published in Dawn, September 21th, 2014