Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday, while reiterating Pakistan’s unshakeable support to the people of Kashmir, assured them that besides being their ambassador, he would continue his struggle locally and internationally for Kashmiris’ rights as their spokesman and advocate.
“Today, I want to tell the people of Kashmir again that being already their ambassador as I had committed to them, I will also become your spokesman. I will also become your advocate,” the prime minister said in his message to the nation on Kashmir Black Day annually observed on October 27 to mark the Indian occupation of Kashmir.
He assured the Kashmir people that the entire Pakistani nation, including the minorities, stood by them and would always support them until they got their right to self-determination as guaranteed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
He said October 27 was a Black Day when the Indian troops had landed in Kashmir. Following this, the Indian prime minister moved to the UNSC, which gave Kashmiris the right to decide their future through plebiscite, he recalled. “Throughout this period, India made many commitments with the Kashmiri people regarding their rights but instead continued controlling them through rigged elections.” A similar election, he said, had taken place some 30 years ago and people were brutally killed when they had taken to streets to protest the poll rigging.
He said that so far around 100,000 people had been killed in the occupied territory during this movement of freedom. Adding fuel to fire, the Narendra Modi regime revoked the special status of the disputed territory by amending the Indian constitution and imposed curfew there to suppress the protesting voices, he said. He said that India had usurped all fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people and no one knew what was exactly happening there.
Imran said that in the recently held local government election, the Kashmiri people had rejected Modi’s narrative that the constitutional amendment was meant for their welfare. The BJP faced the defeat despite the fact that all the political parties had boycotted the poll, he added. “If Narendra Modi’s government thinks the people of Kashmir like his self-proclaimed welfare package, then he should hold a referendum. This will let them know where the people of Kashmir stand,” he remarked. The prime minister said that through his speech at the United Nations and his interaction with world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, French president, German chancellor and British prime minister, all had come to know what kind of atrocities were being perpetrated in the occupied valley. He said he had been hearing different statements from AJK and somewhere else calling for declaration of jihad or sending Pakistan Army to Kashmir or picking up arms. “Listen to my words carefully, those who are saying so are doing enmity with both Kashmiris as well as Pakistan. Because this is what Indian wants,” he said.
He said India had deployed troops to suppress the people of Kashmir to make them give up their right to self-determination. The Modi government desired to incriminate Pakistan in any way possible to deviate the world’s attention from the usurpation of Kashmiris’ rights and justify their deployment by accusing Pakistan of such actions, he said. “Making the same excuse, India will carry out more barbarism to crush the Kashmir people.”
He said Pakistan had to support the Kashmiri people morally, politically and diplomatically because it was a political movement. “This is a movement… no one can stop now,” he said. Separately, Prime Minister Imran Khan reaffirmed that the government would continue extending diplomatic, moral and political support to its Kashmiri brethren by raising the Kashmir issue at all world fora. He was talking to a delegation of All Parties Hurriyat Conference that called on him, according to a statement.
