Continued support extended to people of IIOJK

By Asghar Ali Mubarak

ISLAMABAD: Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam on Sunday reiterated the government’s firm commitment to continue its moral and diplomatic support for the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) for their just right of self-determination.
While, addressing an event held here to mark India’s independence day as black day, which was organized by Friends of Kashmir International, Imam said on Janury, 1 1948 then Indian Prime Minister Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru himself taken the matter in United Nations General Assembly and pledged for settling the issue as according the aspiration of the people of Kashmir.
He said the United Nations Security Council had passed about 17 resolution in which it termed Jammu and Kashmir as an disputed territory and said that the people of Kashmir would be provided the right to decide their fate, adding that since 1987 about 95,000 Kashmari’s were martyred by Indian occupied forces to suppress their voice for the right of self-determination.
The minister said that shaheed Burhan Wani infused a new spirit in the Kashmir freedom movement by persuading the young generation of Jammu & Kashmir to take to the street agitation in nook and corner of the occupied valley to get the homeland free from forced and illegal Indian occupation.
Fakhar said the supreme sacrifices of the lives by the Kashmiri martyrs would not be allowed to go in vain, adding that even world largest deployment of military forces upto 900,000 on 8 million unarmed and innocent civilian population was revealing India’s fascism and hindutva ideology. He said that now world had started the feeling the sensitivity of the situation and also took notice of gross human rights violations by Indian occupied forces, adding that recent report of United Nations Human Rights Council had exposed Indian face and its large claims of a democratic country.
Imam said that Prime Minister Imran Khan very efficiently raised the voice of Kashmari people in UN General Assembly and apprised the world about their point of view, adding that all the political parties and civil society were with the people of Kashmir in their struggle for freedom from Indian occupation.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations Altaf Hussain Wani said that Kashmiris across the globe were observing black day on August 15 to highlight the atrocities carried by occupied forces in IIOJK.