Srinagar, Jan 30: Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Wednesday asked the Government of India (GoI) as to why a phone call to him by Pakistan’s foreign minister has irked it saying Pakistan is a party to (Kashmir) dispute.
“What are they (GoI) objecting to?” Mirwaiz said while addressing the amalgam’s delegates session at Rajbagh headquarters here.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq over phone, and according to a statement issued by the Pakistani Foreign Office, the two “spoke on the issue of Kashmir where Qureshi said that his government was trying to highlight the ‘human rights violations’ being perpetrated by India”.
“Should the world not know of it?” Mirwaiz said. “If India cares so much about its image let them walk their talk of being a democracy and resolve the dispute democratically through talks and hold the promised referendum.”
He said Pakistan is “highlighting the daily misery of Kashmiris whose every right including the right to live is subject to the whim of an ordinary soldier on the ground who can shoot at will under legal cover and get away with it or worse be rewarded for it”.
Mirwaiz said while on one hand, the GoI talks about ‘Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat, and Jhamoriyat’ but on the ground, the fact is that they have “unleashed worst ever policy of repression” under the garb of CASO wherein every day our youth are being killed mercilessly.
Hurriyat (M) chairman said that New Delhi’s “stubborn approach” was the biggest hurdle in Kashmir resolution.
“Though the former prime minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee had talked about dealing with Kashmir within the ambit of Insaniyat with all parties on board but the current Indian PM Narendra Modi has only followed an iron fist military approach to suppress the voice of the people of Kashmir,” Mirwaiz said adding that “the people are facing tremendous hardships and it is need of the hour to forge unity on all fronts”.
He said “the people of Kashmir are offering priceless sacrifices for a sacred cause and there is a long list of sacrifices that will go in the great history of Kashmir struggle”.
“Kashmir struggle is not for any economic package or chair or for any monetary benefits but purely for the right to self-determination. A series of steps are being employed to weaken the struggle and the example is before us that our educated youth are being pushed to wall and left with no option other than to pick up arms and resistance leadership caged and even not allowed to mourn the deaths of our youth, our orchards damaged, houses blown up and resistance leaders caged and booked under PSA,” he said.
“Legal ploys are also being put to use to change the disputed nature of Kashmir while as military might is used to muzzle the genuine dissent,” Mirwaiz said.
