The lawmakers belonging to both ruling and opposition parties in Lower House of parliament on Wednesday condemned India propaganda linking Pakistan with the Pulwama incident.
National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar presented and read out a resolution which condemned the baseless and unfounded allegations by India against Pakistan in the wake of Pulwama attack. Though the opposition parties in their separate meeting had decided to launch a protest over the arrest of Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani and other issues but later they agreed to postpone the protest and allowed the government to present the resolution.
The House noted that despite Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer to India to act against those involved, provided New Delhi gives actionable intelligence, the response from Indian government is lamentable. The resolution expressed concern over the increase in harassment and intimidation of Kashmiri people across India. It said that Jammu and Kashmir is an unresolved issue since partition which must be resolved according to the UN resolutions and as per aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
The resolution rejected ‘baseless allegations’ against Pakistan linking the attack on the convoy of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Pulwama. “It condemns Indian knee-jerk reaction where instead of introspection on its repressive policies against the people of Jammu and Kashmir denying their right of self-determination, India has again sought to shift the blame to Pakistan through baseless polemic and provocative rhetoric,” the resolution read. It recalled the statements by heads of all political parties and also the prime minister’s statement in which he offered Pakistan’s assistance to India in investigation of the attack and to take action on actionable intelligence or evidence. It strongly denounced the continuing reprisal attacks on Kashmiris in the occupied valley and targeting of Kashmiri students in India after the Pulwama attack. The resolution stressed that India’s smear campaign should not delude and obscure the real issues of the human rights nightmare and humanitarian emergency prevalent in IHK due to the Indian atrocities. It also emphasized that no one should underestimate Pakistan’s resolve to defend itself against any act of aggression.
The resolution reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute, pending on the agenda of United Nations Security Council due to Indian intransigence. It underscored that a just and peaceful solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute is an unfinished agenda of the partition of India and essential for durable peace and stability in the region. The resolution called upon India to put an immediate halt to the continued human rights violations in the occupied valley and implement UNSC resolutions calling for an impartial plebiscite to determine the future of the people of Kashmir.
Published in Daily Times, February 21st 2019.
