Daily Times

Though his maiden visit to the United States of America (USA) hit some controversy initially, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi has created ripples in the elite circles of the US think tanks, academia and the legislators.

Through his two-week long stay in the US, Afridi has been involved in hectic but candid engagements with top US think tank, lobbyists and Congressmen during his visit to the United States. This is, perhaps, the very first time for any Chairman of the Kashmir Committee to expand direct outreach to the US intelligentsia, academia, human rights activists and lobbyist groups in past 40 years.

Afridi was fully supported by Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in the US as Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan and Ambassador Munir Akram choreographed his meetings and interactions. Icing on the cake was value addition of Thair Javed, the longtime friend of Prime Minister Imran Khan who arranged various visits and meetings of Shehryar Afridi.

Senior Kashmiri activists Ghulam Nabi Fai, the secretary general of the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, and other Kashmiri activists Dr Ghulam Nabi Mir, Dr Imtiaz Ahmed Khan and others also chipped in by arranging meetings with US think tank, lobbyists and academicians.

During his stay in State, Shehryar Afridi visited top notch think tanks in the US and held meetings with the officials of at least four top lobbying institutions including Middle East Institute, Atlantic Council, American Institute of Politics & Public Policy (AIP3) and the prestigious International Crisis Group and presented dossiers on the ongoing genocide of Kashmiris at the hands of the illegally occupational regime of India in Jammu and Kashmir. He also held talks with senior Congressmen and Senators and exposed the Indian oppressive designs against Kashmiri people and urged them to take action on humanitarian grounds.

During his meeting with ICG’s Director Laurel Miller, Shehryar Khan Afridi presented a dossier on the India’s war crimes against the people of Jammu and Kashmir but also urged the ICG to raise its voice against the humanitarian crisis developing in the occupied valley. He also visited the American Institute of Politics & Public Policy (AIP3) and addressed a distinguished gathering of human rights experts and activists. He narrated to the audience how the illegal occupational regime of India was involved in a systematic economic strangulation of Kashmiri people by cutting jobs and local businesses and allowing non-Kashmiri Hindus to take away businesses from oppressed Kashmiris.

Afridi also had a detailed meeting with Lawrence Moss of the Amnesty International (AI) on the sidelines of the 76th United Nations General Assembly session and briefed him on how India was muzzling voices and free speech in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He briefed the AI Advisor on the measures being adopted to suffocate the Kashmiri journalists and human rights activists and how Indian authorities were shrinking space for the human rights defenders, activists and journalists in an evil bid to stop imagery and stories of Indian genocide going out of Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmir Committee Chairman also met with Marvin G Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute and detailed how the illegal occupational regime of India in Jammu and Kashmir was targeting senior and aged politicians. He also raised the custodial killing of senior leaders of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Syed Ali Geelani and Mohammad Ashraf Khan Sehrai, Shehryar Afridi said that India was killing the pro-freedom senior Hurriyat leaders taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Afridi also called on celebrated author and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Mr Shuja Nawaz and briefed him on the demographic terrorism being engineered by the Indian state in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). He told the senior author that after failing to cultivate Indian agenda in the IIOJK, India was implementing its evil plan to turn Kashmiris into a minority in their own state.

Shehyar Afridi also interacted with US representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who is also the Chair of Congressional Pakistan Caucus, and briefed her on the humanitarian crisis developing in Jammu and Kashmir. He urged Mr Jackson to become a voice for the voiceless Kashmiris and prove again that humanity comes first for the American government and its people.

He also held a meeting with Senator Chris Van Hollen and briefed him on the Indian war crimes in the IIOJK. Shehryar Afridi detailed the tactics being employed by the Indian illegally occupational regime in Jammu and Kashmir to target and kill Kashmiri youth in the garb of fighting militancy so as to suppress dissent.