Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday paid tribute to Kashmiris on Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir (Kashmir Martyrs Day) for their “valiant fight and defiance against a Hindutva supremacist regime”.
In a tweet, the premier referred to the 22 Kashmiris who were martyred 89 years ago during a protest against the autocratic rule of a Hindu Maharaja in the Muslim majority state as the “forefathers of today’s Kashmiri resistance”.
“Their descendants have, generation after generation, laid down their lives for freedom and today they continue to valiantly fight and defy a Hindutva Supremacist regime bent on demographic engineering to wipe out the Kashmiri people and their identity,” Khan tweeted.
He said Pakistan had always stood with the Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination and would continue to stand with them in their “just struggle” till the Indian-occupied valley is free from illegal occupation, adding that the day was “not far”.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, while paying tribute to the martyrs said that their courage had “regalvanised a decades old struggle for self-determination in 1931”, which he said was an “inalienable right Kashmiris continue to die for to this day”.
He added that no occupation could “subjugate [the brave] spirit of Kashmir”.
In a statement, he said that there had been ups and downs in the Kashmiris “exemplary struggle” from 1931 to 2020 but it had not “dampened their spirits”. He said that India had brought in new laws and had used every type of tactic. India had even tried to “buy out” the Kashmiri leadership, Qureshi said, but it had failed. He assured the people of the valley that despite facing “problems and pain”, they were not alone. “Today, every child in Pakistan and all the political and defence leadership is standing with you in your struggle for self-determination and will continue standing with you until it is achieved.”
The foreign minister said that India was being “exposed” in front of the world as shown by the recent clash between India and China in Ladakh.
He urged the entire Muslim ummah to become the voice of the people in occcupied Kashmir and to use social media to make their voices heard “even in parts of the world that have gone deaf”.
Inter-services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar, in a tweet, said Kashmir Martyrs Day was “reminiscent of utmost price paid for freedom by brave Kashmiris”.
He said “decades of Indian atrocities failed to suppress insurmountable spirit and legitimate freedom struggle” of the Kashmiris, which was “destined to succeed”.
PML-N chief and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif said the 22 martyred Kashmiris in 1931 had “written a history of bravery”.
“Despite intensification of violence post-August 5 by India, Kashmiris of all ages and across genders are challenging Modi’s fascism today with their blood. They are hope of future!” he tweeted. Meanwhile, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that Kashmiris will soon get freedom and India will face defeat. Indian leaders will continue to stumble with the echo of the Azaan that was given by Kashmiri martyrs, he added.
