MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government on Wednesday asked Islamabad to convene a multiparty conference for serious deliberations on the reign of terror unleashed by the Indian government on people in India-held Kashmir and elsewhere in India in the wake of the Pulwama attack.

For the past one week, visuals pouring in through social media have shown Kashmiri students, businessmen and visitors being thrashed and humiliated and their belongings vandalised by unruly mobs in different parts of India with police watching as silent spectators.

According to the Srinagar-based Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), comprising Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik, the widespread and organised unilateral violence against the Kashmiris is apparently instigated by India’s government because none of the perpetrators of hateful at­­t­a­cks had so far been arrested let alone penalised.

“When announcements of vengeance come from as high as [Indian] prime minister’s office, home minster and other political class, when a sitting governor, Tathagata Roy, of Meghalaya is tweeting publicly to boycott, rape, massacre and kill Kashmiris and he is not even asked to [exercise] restraint and when TV channels dying for their TRP are let free to spread hatred and venom, how can these ugly attacks be termed mere acts of resentment and anger,” said the JRL in a statement, which was emailed to Dawn from Srinagar.

Commenting on it during a conversation with media persons at Central Press Club, Muzaffarabad, AJK’s senior minister Chaudhry Tariq Farooq said Pakistan had nothing to do with the Pulwama attack and it was carried out by a local Kash­miri boy against a bloodthirsty [paramilitary] force that had been killing, injuring, blinding and molesting innocent Kashmiris with impunity for long.

He maintained that while the Indian government was blaming Pakistan to cover up its failures in held Kashmir, Hindu fanatics were taking revenge on defenceless Kashmiri students and traders in India.

“Reports and visuals of assaults on Kashmiri students and traders by fanatics backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in different parts of India are heart-wrenching and warrant for an immediate response on our part,” he said. Mr Farooq, who is also senior vice president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, pointed out that Hindu zealots were inflicting harm on Kash­m­i­ris just because of their un­­w­­avering attachment with Pakistan and their refusal to chat anti-Pakistan slogans.

This, he emphatically said, had multiplied the obligations of the Pakistan government to do something “concrete” to alleviate their sufferings.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019