Srinagar
Dozens of Kashmiri activists staged an “anti-India” rally in the capital of Pakistan Administered Kashmir on Monday, as GooI appointed special interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir arrived in Srinagar on a five-day visit “to hold talks with all the stakeholders”.
The rally, which began from Burhan Wani Chowk and ended near Garhipan, was organised by Pasban-e-Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (PHJK), an organisation of post-1990 migrants from held Kashmir, Dawn.com reported.
“India should acknowledge Kashmir as a disputed territory and hold tripartite talks,” read a banner carried by the rally’s participants.
The protesters in Muzaffarabad maintained that the appointment of a new interlocutor was a ploy to weaken the ongoing anti-India movement in occupied Kashmir, the Dawn report said.
“Down with India’s double-dealing and deceit,” the protesters shouted, as they paraded through the main road.
“The move is aimed at overshadowing the sacrifices of the Kashmiri people so they can achieve their internationally acknowledged right to self-determination,” said PHJK chief Uzair Ahmed Ghazali.
India has stepped up repression and its National Investigating Agency was constantly intimidating Kashmiri leaders and their families with “so-called terror funding cases”, said Ghazali.
In addition to this, they have appointed a former spy “to normalise the situation” in the territory, he added.
“In fact, this hollow and delusive move is directed at hoodwinking the international community at a time when efforts to expose Indian brutalities and duplicities across the world have picked up,” the PHJK chief maintained.
Pakistan People’s Party leader Shaukat Javed Mir said no one was disinclined to hold dialogue, provided that the process was meant to be result-oriented and included all three parties to the dispute.
“Ironically, India’s track-record holds testimony to the bitter reality that she has always used dialogue – either with Pakistan or with the Kashmiris – as a tactic to buy time,” he maintained.
