Zubair Qureshi
The federal capital and its adjacent city, Rawalpindi, on Saturday witnessed a number of rallies, seminars, processions and conferences held to mark the Youm-e-Yakjehti-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Solidarity Day) the nation observes every year on February 5 in solidarity with the people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K).
All the major political parties and their Islamabad/Rawalpindi chapters including the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (, the Pakistan People’s Party Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl and others took out rallies and organized processions.
A number of Human Rights activists and members of civil society turned up outside the National Press Club and called upon the international community, to pay attention to the plight of the Kashmiris and make sure they will get freedom which is their fundamental right.
Kashmir, they said has never been and will never be a part of India .
Students of various schools and colleges, traders and business organizations also organized seminars and events to highlight the plight of the Kashmiri people.
Chairperson of the Peace and Culture Organization and wife of the Kashmiri freedom leader Yasin Malik, Mushaal Hussein Mullick also condemned the ongoing oppression by the occupying Indian forces. She said lasting peace, security and development in the region depended on peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
She demanded that Kashmiri people should be given the right to use free and fair referendums. While addressing the inaugural ceremony of a tableau, speech and Kashmiri song competitions and photo exhibition on Indian atrocities among school children held at the Rawalpindi Arts Council Mullick said that after the illegal and unilateral measures taken by India on August 5, 2019, the human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir was getting worse and worse.
Mushaal Mullick said the relentless wave of killings by Indian occupying forces, deliberate arrests of Kashmiris and human rights defenders and refusal to hand over the bodies of martyrs to their heirs is extremely important for people around the world. It is a matter of concern.
Director Arts Council Waqar Ahmad said that Indian occupying forces were indiscriminately using brutal force against Kashmiri men, women, children and the elderly.