APHC-AJK leaders, academia, activists and subject experts expressed solidarity with the oppressed people of the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine during an event jointly hosted by Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFK) and the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in Islamabad.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the participants at the ‘Solidarity Iftar’ event highlighted the ongoing struggles and human rights violations faced by both the Kashmiri and Palestinian people. During the event, LFK launched a report titled India’s Impunity in Kashmir: Surveillance, Counter-Insurgency & Politics of Fear, which sheds light on the systematic use of surveillance, counter-insurgency measures, and political repression against the people of Kashmir.
The event was chaired by Dr. Khalid Rahman, Chairman IPS; and the panelists included Mehmood Ahmed Saghar, Convener APHC-AJK chapter; Ghulam Muhammad Safi, senior APHC-AJK leader, Abdur Rasheed Turabi, former Ameer Jamaat e Islami AJK; Prof. Dr. Amna Mahmood, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences IIUI. Advocate Nasir Qadri, Executive Director LFK, moderated the event.
In his address, APHC-AJK convenor, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar asserted that “India is not working alone in Kashmir, it is being aided and assisted by foreign authorities. The manifestation of India’s settler colonial program in Kashmir is an indication of the conjunction in Indian and Israeli strategies to eliminate the natives and ensure the settlements of non-natives.”
He said the need of the hour is to ensure that the voices of Kashmiris are heard and that their struggle for self-determination is acknowledged by the international community. “We must continue to highlight the atrocities being committed by India in Kashmir and expose the complicity of other states in this matter.—INP