NEW YORK: Pakistan is pushing the international community to pressurise India to allow Kashmiri people to exercise UN-pledged right to self-determination to pave the way for peace and stability in the region, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi Saturday said.
Speaking at a gathering of Pakistani and Kashmiri community members, she denounced brutal tactics employed by Indian security forces in suppressing the mass uprising, and described the prolonged curfews in Held Kashmir as “107 days of shame and infamy”.
More than 115 Kashmiri people have been killed and over 15,000 injured, with 150 permanently blinded by deadly pellet injuries in protests against the killing of popular Kashmiri youth leader Burhan Wani.
“Under the direction and advice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, we have raised and will continue to raise the Kashmir dispute at all UN forums,” Lodhi told the meeting held at Pakistan House to mark the anniversary of India’s massive invasion and occupation of Kashmir on October 27, 1947, known as Black Day.
She said the prime minister during the UN General Assembly’s session in September had made a clarion call for the grant of UN-pledged right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir and demanded an international probe into the atrocities let loose by Indian security forces in Held Kashmir.
The Pakistan delegation to the UN has kept up the momentum by focusing the international community’s attention to human rights violations in Kashmir and the people’s struggle for freedom from Indian yoke, she said at meeting, which was organised by the Pakistan Consulate General in New York.
“Today is not the only Black Day in Kashmir; every day in Kashmir is black as long as the state is under occupation,” the envoy said, adding that Pakistan will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Kashmiri brethren in their struggle for self-determination.
She debunked the notion that Pakistan was isolated, saying such claims had been made to demoralise the people. In this regard, she cited a resolution adopted by 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at foreign ministers level in Tashkent earlier this month.
She also urged the community members to draw the attention of fellow American to the plight of Kashmiri people through all available means to build up public opinion there. Consul General Raja Ali Ejaz reiterated the Pakistan government’s pledge to extend its moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir in their struggle to attain their fundamental rights.
Other speakers included Kashmiri activists Sardar Sawar Khan, a former member of Azad Jammu Kashmir Council, Dr Asif Rehman, Shafiq Siddiqui, Imtiaz Guralvi, and Shafqat Tanveer.
They condemned the large-scale human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK), and urged the international community to help resolve the dispute in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Todd Shea, an American who did relief work during the 2008 earthquake, also made a stirring call in support of Kashmiris’ struggle for freedom.
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