ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan observed Kashmir Black Day on Tuesday, with the National Assembly unanimously reaffirming its support for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the country’s leadership calling on the world to press India to end rights violations in the territory.
October 27 marks the day in 1947 when Indian troops landed in Srinagar. Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control and in the diaspora observe it each year as a day of mourning.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the arrival of Indian forces a “tragic chapter” in the region’s history and said he was deeply concerned about the long imprisonment of Kashmiri political leaders, activists and human rights defenders. “Pakistan’s position on Jammu and Kashmir remains clear, consistent and principled,” he said, adding that lasting peace required a settlement under UN Security Council resolutions and in line with the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
‘Decades of conflict’
President Asif Ali Zardari said Kashmiris had endured decades of conflict, restrictions and denial of rights since 1947, and that heightened militarisation, arrests and reports of abuses in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir remained a matter of serious concern that needed sustained international attention.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination remained unfinished nearly eight decades on, and that Pakistan would continue to back it politically, diplomatically and morally. The dispute, he said, could not be settled through unilateral actions or force, a reference to India’s revocation of the region’s special status under Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said Kashmiris had waited decades for the self-determination promised to them in UN resolutions, and asked when the international community would deliver on it.
Assembly resolution and D-Chowk rally
The National Assembly’s resolution reaffirmed Pakistan’s “unwavering moral, political and diplomatic support” for Kashmiris and declared that “neither the passage of time, nor repression, nor unilateral actions could extinguish the legitimate aspirations” of the Kashmiri people. It condemned extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and custodial torture, and urged sustained diplomacy at the UN, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and other forums.
In Islamabad, Minister for Kashmir Affairs Amir Muqam addressed a rally at D-Chowk, where participants carried Pakistani and Kashmiri flags. He said Indian brutality had failed to break the Kashmiri spirit of freedom.
