LAHORE, Jan 20: National Kashmir Committee chairman Sardar Qayyum has said attacks on Srinagar assembly and Indian parliament have defamed the Kashmir movement.
Speaking at a news conference at the Lahore Press Club on Sunday, he said these activities were not jihad. “Of late jihad has taken a shape in which non-Muslim civilians and even Muslims are killed on mere suspicion,” he said.
“This is terrorism, having nothing to do with jihad. You can present such activities as jihad, but there have been certain events like the attack on Srinagar assembly whose responsibility was accepted by some jihadi outfits which provided an excuse to term the Kashmir freedom struggle terrorism,” he said.
Sardar Qayyum said jihad contained universal connotation involving struggle at political, intellectual and many other levels. “I consider my political career as a jihad but we have understood it as if it relates only to killing others and getting ourselves killed,” he said.
He claimed that jihadi outfits had started settling their own disputes and setting their own agenda which had confused the freedom struggle, and now it required to streamline the entire related efforts to get Kashmir liberated.
Sardar Qayyum highlighted the role of China in the resolution of Kashmir dispute. The Sino-Pak agreement provided that China would have reservations about resolution of the issue while ignoring the UN resolutions on it.
“Americans were not fool to try to impose any resolution of their own choice to invite reaction from China. So far, the UN, America and Pakistan have been stressing the need for a solution according to the UN resolutions,” he said.
The former AJK prime minister said no-one even Pakistan could stop the Kashmir freedom struggle which would automatically be adjusted to steps for a negotiated resolution of the dispute. “In fact, it is not in the control of anyone to stop the freedom struggle,” he said.
He rejected any third option of the dispute. If there was any third option, there were no ways and means to implement it. The late Dr Mehboobul Haq had proposed any such option which was abandoned because of the lack of any implementation method, he said. “However, if there is a miracle, like that of the repartition of India to adjust Muslim population areas, I cannot say anything about the third option,” he said.
Sardar Qayyum said it was a mere supposition that India would not come to the negotiations table if jihad in Kashmir was stopped. The freedom struggle during the past 10 years had definitely increased the importance of the issue and its seriousness, making the world to feel about its just resolution.
He said the developments started from the Kargil conflict had increased the importance of the dispute. The current tense situation on borders which though created by India had its main link to the dispute and its resolution.
He said the world was trying to avert war between the two countries and to develop good neighbourly relations between them, but this could be possible only through a solution to the Kashmir dispute.
He praised President Musharraf for boldly and clearly highlighting the freedom struggle and correcting its direction. The Kashmir committee had also been formed to consolidate government and non-government level efforts to liberate Kashmir and to remove all misunderstandings created about the struggle abroad through Indian propaganda and by “our own follies”.
Sardar Qayyum said the committee would also strive to create an atmosphere suitable for a negotiated solution to the dispute as the people at present were talking the language of only swords. It would also try to diffuse tension and to build confidence among the parties to the dispute.
“Do not indulge in the discussion that as to how the misunderstandings were allowed to be generated over the years,” he said.
He said: “Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan will be welcomed if he agrees to take part in the committee’s activities otherwise we will ourselves seek his guidance.”