Pak PM blasts Indian ‘aggression’ on ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’

In a message issued on what Pakistan observed as Kashmir Solidarity Day, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said some 20 people had died in “Indian aggression”.

He added that India continues to deny the people of Kashmir the right to self-determination enshrined in UN Security Council resolutions.

Abbasi also described the Kashmir issue as an “unfinished agenda of Partition” and one of the oldest disputes on the agenda of the UN Security Council. While condemning the current violence in Kashmir and the detention of Hurriyat leaders, he said the world community should help in ending rights violations and ask India to allow fact-finding missions into Kashmir to conduct an investigation.

“Pakistan will continue to extend its political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people until the realisation of the right to self-determination,” he added.

A special meeting of Pakistan’s cabinet on 2 April adopted a resolution to observe Friday as Kashmir Solidarity Day.

The day was reportedly observed across Pakistan and Pakistan Administered Kashmir (PaK) – which India dubs Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or PoK - to condemn the alleged “state terrorism and violence” by the Indian Army in Kashmir.

Reports say different political parties staged protest demonstrations, which were most marked in Karachi. The organisers included Jamaat e Islami (JI), Jamait Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan People Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the latter controlled by famed former cricketer Imran Khan.

In a separate message, foreign minister Khawaja Asif said Kashmir remains the “core dispute” between the two countries and “peace in the region will remain elusive until its resolution” in line with the will of the Kashmiris.

Asif also accused India of “trying to resolve disputes through the barrel of the gun”.

Musadik Malik, the special assistant to the Prime Minister, while speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Azerbaijan, claimed efforts to equate the movement in Kashmiris with terrorism can never deter Kashmiris.

He said durable peace could be achieved by resolving outstanding disputes, without which dividends of peace and development will remain unfulfilled.

India accuses Pakistan of stoking unrest in Kashmir by backing cross-border terrorism, a charge denied by Islamabad but widely accepted globally.