MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider on Monday said if “direct meddling by the prime minister of Pakistan and his ministers” did not stop in the forthcoming elections, he along with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership would stage a sit-in in Islamabad.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members are brazenly desecrating and contravening AJK’s Constitution. I want to place my case before the people of Pakistan,” he said at a hurriedly summoned press conference.

“Aren’t the AJK Constitution, laws, rules and regulations binding on them? Do they consider us [AJK people] slaves who can be bought with money,” he said, adding Kashmiris had never accepted slavery and they wanted to become a part of Pakistan as equal and free citizens, through a United Nations sponsored plebiscite.

He cited the example of federal Kashmir Affairs Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, saying that the AJK Election Commission had not only ordered the police to proceed against him under law but had also asked him to leave the territory after finding him guilty of serious breaches of the code of conduct and election laws.

“However, Prime Minister Imran Khan has not only been bringing Mr Gandapur along with him at his election related engagements [in AJK] but he has also been allowing him to deliver speeches, in what amounts to serious disgrace of the people and institutions of Azad Kashmir,” Mr Haider said.

He said despite employing resources of the state, PM Khan had failed to make headway towards success of his party because people had preferred the PML-N over PTI.

Mr Haider emphatically said that the PML-N was destined to once again form government in AJK.

“This has made Imran Khan jittery and out of this feeling he is denting the interests of the state of Pakistan,” he said.

He also took strong exception to dubbing Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as ‘traitor’ and said the PTI had no right to hurl such allegations.

To a question, he said the chief secretary was just for coordination while he (referring to himself) was the chief executive.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2021