Speakers urge India to give Kashmiris their birthright to self-determination
Islamabad: In connection with the Pakistan Accession Day, a prestigious Kashmir conference was organized at Kashmir House in Islamabad by All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir (APHC-AJK) chapter and the Kashmir Liberation Cell, which was chaired by senior Hurriyat leader Muhammad Farooq Rahmani.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the conference was attended by prominent political, religious and social figures of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan, representatives of civil society, elders belonging to different schools of thought and the Hurriyat leadership.
The speakers, while throwing light on the historical background of July 19, 1947, clarified that on this day in 1947, the Kashmiri leadership had held an extraordinary and historic meeting in Srinagar and unanimously passed a resolution to associate the future of the state of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan.
They described this decision as a true reflection of the heartfelt desire of the Kashmiri people, geographical, religious, cultural and historical realities and said this decision is still alive in the hearts of the Kashmiri people with full determination, belief and perseverance.
The speakers paid tribute to the political understanding, courage and foresight of the then leadership and said that they took the historic decision of accession to Pakistan by truly and clearly expressing the collective desires of the Kashmiri people, which is still the center and axis of the freedom and struggle of the Kashmiri people.
They said that India, realizing the ground realities, should immediately withdraw its forces mmu and Kashmir in the light of the United Nations resolutions, internafrom Jational laws and its own previous declarations and give the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination.
They said that the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, had promised the Kashmiri people that the Indian forces were not here to stay but only until peace was restored but unfortunately, India had reneged on its promises with the passage of time and had been continuously abusing Kashmiris, putting the peace and security of the region at constant risk.
The speakers said for more than seven decades, India has been using every illegal tactic to maintain its usurping control over the Jammu and Kashmir and millions of Kashmiris have been martyred, thousands have been disabled and thousands of youth and Hurriyat leaders have been languishing in jails and torture cells.
The participants of the conference demanded of the international community, the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and all international human rights organizations to take immediate notice of the Indian aggression in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and play their effective role in the practical implementation of the fundamental right of the Kashmiri people, the right to self-determination.
The conference was attended by Senator Dinesh Kumar, Kashmir Committee Member Fatehullah Miankhel, Abdullah Gul, Azad Kashmir Ministers Imtiaz Naseem, Javed Iqbal Badhanvi, former Minister Farzana Yaqoob, Gilgit-Baltistan Government Spokesperson Faizullah Faraq, Ghulam Nabi Butt, Raja Pervez, senior Hurriyat leaders Mahmood Ahmed Saghar, Syed Yousuf Naseem, Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, Shamim Shawl, Mir Tahir Masood, Muhammad Hussain Khateeb, Ijaz Rahmani, Chaudhry Shaheen, Javed Iqbal, Dawood Khan, Mian Muzaffar, Zahid Ashraf, Manzoor Ahmed Shah, Syed Gulshan, Zahid Mujtaba, Abdul Majeed Mir, Jamila Qadri, PTI leader Sardar Majid Sharif, Director of Liberation Cell Afsar Khan, Assistant Director of Liberation Cell Najeebullah, Qazi Imran, Manzoor Ahmed Dar, Adeel Mushtaq, Imtiaz Ahmed Butt and others.
