Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Thursday said that Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh was coming to Pakistan on August 3 for attending South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Home Ministers Conference to discuss a range of issues including the core issue of Kashmir .

Foreign Office Spokesperson, Nafees Zakaria said this during his weekly press briefing. He said that Rajnath will attend SAARC meeting of home ministers, scheduled for August 3 and 4. On the sidelines of the conference, his meeting with Pakistani counterparts is expected. The Indian home minister will be the first senior Indian government official visiting Pakistan after the Pathankot airbase attack and recent Kashmiri uprising.

According to Indian media the Indian home minister, besides attending the SAARC meeting will likely have bilateral meetings with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar. Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said that people of Jammu and Kashmir were struggling against the Indian occupation more than 68 years, seeking rights to self-determination enshrined in United Nations resolutions. India was using suppression as a tool against unarmed Kashmiris. Pakistan condemned the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APNC) leader’s arrests and urged India to release them.

He said India had promised to conduct free and fair plebiscite under UN resolutions and even Indians from different segment of society were raising questions about brutal force against innocent Kashmiris.

Citing the Indian forces’ atrocities against the people of Occupied Kashmir, he said Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs had already written a letter to UN Human Rights Commissioner, calling to send a fact finding mission to IoK. Pakistan has also written letters to UN Secretary General, UN Security Council and Secretary General, Organizations of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on this count.

He said Pakistan in the past had raised the Kashmir issue in the UN General Assembly and would take it in the upcoming session, as well as bringing it up with every country in bilateral meetings.

He accused India of trying to equate Kashmir’s struggle of self-determination with terrorism, and urged social media sites like Facebook to play a neutral role and not censor content on Kashmir.

On Zulfiqar Ali’s execution in Indonesia, the spokesperson said that since Ali’s arrest in 2004, the Pakistani mission in Indonesia had been in contact with the government and was pursuing the case, claiming he had full counselor access. The Lower Court convicted him, and then appeals in the High Court were rejected by Indonesia. He acknowledged that this had been a source of great stress to Zulfiqar Ali’s family.