Daily Times

LAHORE: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that the people of Kashmir will continue their resolute struggle for self-determination, despite fluctuations in international politics.

He was addressing an International Conference on “Kashmir in Focus: Avoiding Conflict and a Quest for Peace”, organised by Punjab University’s Pakistan Study Centre. The conference is being attended by leading scholars from Pakistan, China and the Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK).

The AJK president underlined that Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir; and Kashmir is incomplete without Pakistan. He said that Kashmiris and Pakistanis were bound by the bonds of kinship, security, waters and economy. “No power on earth can break this bond”, he said.

He said that a strong Pakistan was Kashmir’s freedom movements’ sponsor. “Pakistan’s state and economy are ‘turning a corner’. This provides an opportunity to intensify Pakistan’s call for justice in Kashmir by intensifying its moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashimirs”, he said.

He said that India was brutalising Kashmiris by killing them, by blinding them and by dishonouring them. “The cities and towns of IHK have been turned into killing fields,” he said

“India was trying to change IHK’s demography by genocide, illegal settlements and by giving residence and properties to non-Kashmiris,”the president said.

He asked India to stop violating the Line of Control (LoC) in a bid to divert attention from its crimes against humanity in IHK.

Sardar Masood said that the people of Kashmir and Pakistan believe that diplomacy and dialogue, not war, would deliver a durable solution of long standing issue of Kashmir.

He called on the international community to hold India accountable for its violations of human rights in IHK.