Daily Times

Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi Saturday said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief’s statement of ‘undoing partition’ of the subcontinent reflected India’s expansionist designs.

Addressing the participants of the Kashmir Conference organized by High Court Bar Association Rawalpindi, he said that India had become a threat to regional peace and development, adding “the recent statement of RSS President Mohan Bhagwat reflects that India is a threat to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Bhutan, Nepal, and other regional countries”.

Shehryar Afridi said that the entire nation stood united on nuclear deterrence and Kashmir cause, and there was no difference among the people of Pakistan on the issue. He said that previously there were no rules framed for Kashmir Committee for the past many decades, and after overtaking the office, he had prepared rules. The Chairman Kashmir Committee informed that the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)leadership was part of the Kashmir Committee.

He said that he also included the public component in the narrative building on Kashmir and formed Advisory Boards to revive and reform the national narrative on Kashmir. Sheryar said that India was implementing its plan of genocide in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and was killing and muzzling Kashmiri voices.

He said that Kashmir Committee was working on narrative building on the Kashmir dispute over the digital space. He added that the Committee had made the management of social media companies accountable in the Parliament for not providing a level playing field to the Kashmiri and Pakistani social media users.

Being the first Chairman of the Kashmir Committee, he visited the US, attended the UNGA session, and lobbied with top US lawmakers, lobby groups, think tanks, and civil society activists by holding awareness sessions. While speaking on the occasion, President AJK Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry said he was working to reactivate the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora to help internationalize the Kashmir dispute.

He said that the sacrifices being made by Kashmiri freedom lovers had kept the Kashmir movement alive and said that only a meaningful dialogue could help resolve the Kashmir issue. The President said that the inflexible attitude of India had made Pakistan and Kashmiris rethink their policy, and only internationalizing the Kashmir dispute could help build international pressure on India.