Altaf Hamid Rao,
Washington/MIRPUR (AJK), (Parliament Times) : President Azad Jammu and Kashmir Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry has urged the world’s influential governments in particular the United States of America to use their influence to help resolve the unsettled Kashmir dispute to ensure peace and stability in South Asia.
While addressing a protest demonstration in front of the Indian Embassy in Washington DC, the AJK president said that the illegal occupation of Kashmir by India was the biggest threat to regional peace. He said that in view of the worsening political and human rights situation in the Indian held territory there was a dire need that the UN Secretary General should send his special envoy to Kashmir to assess the situation on the ground in the IoK.Urging the US president Joe Biden to pay heed to the former US president Barack Obama’s clarion call, Barrister Sultan said, “Former US President Barack Obama called Kashmir a dangerous region of the world during his tenure and emphasized on the early settlement of the Kashmir issue”.Referring to persecution of minorities in India, he said that under Modi India was fast turning into a fascist state where there is no place for religious minorities. “Muslims, Christians, Dalits are suffering at the hands of an RSS influenced regime that is hell bent on turning India into a Hindu Rashtra”, he said, adding Gandhi’s so called largest democracy and secular state has virtually been taken over by the Hindu extremist elements who call shots on the ground.Urging the UN to play its legal and moral responsibilities vis-à-vis the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, the President said that besides expressing solidarity with the people of Occupied Kashmir the purpose of today’s protest was to remind the world community of its moral obligations towards Kashmir.“We demand that the international community should stop India from violating human rights in Occupied Kashmir and play its role in resolving the Kashmir issue and granting the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination”, he said.The protest demonstrations was also addressed by prominent Kashmiri intellectual and rights activist Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Former Member Kashmir Council Sardar Sawar Khan, Syed Aftab Shah, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Mir, Miss Seemab Shafiq, Nargis Mughal and others.It is worth mentioning here that the protest, which was organized to mark 75 years of India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir, was attended by members of Pakistani and Kashmiri overseas communities settled in different parts of America.