Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Masood Ahmed Khan said on Thursday that Pakistan was incomplete without Jammu and Kashmir.

He was addressing a seminar on ‘Kashmir Issue: Role of Pakistani Academia and Way Forward’, organised by Department of Governance and Public Policy of National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad. NUML Rector Maj Gen (r) Zia Uddin Najam, Director General Brig Muhammad Ibrahim, deans, heads of departments, faculty members and students were also present on the occasion. “When we talk about the role of academia, we have to see that how many research articles on the dispute have been published? And how many research papers or thesis have been produced in international journals? It is the responsibility of the academia to educate the youth and provide them a counter narrative to counter Indian propaganda regarding the dispute,” Sardar Masood Ahmed Khan said. He said that people of Kashmir had the right of self-determination and world must have to define difference between an unarmed freedom fighter and a militant. “Kashmir issue must be resolved according to the will of the Kashmiris and Kashmir voted in favour of Pakistan,” he said. To a question, he said that Pakistan had weakened the Kashmir dispute by involving itself in bilateral dialogue with India and not pursuing the same case in international forums. He said that Pakistan must have to revisit its Kashmir policy. Earlier, Rector NUML shared his personal experiences with the audience about the line of control and urged the students to keep them away from the Indian propaganda and believe in state institutions of the country.

Published in Daily Times, October 6^th 2017.