Caretaker Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Solangi on Wednesday said that a politically stable and economically strong Pakistan was vital for the protection of the rights of minorities in India, especially Kashmiris who had been struggling for their right to self-determination for over seven decades.
Addressing the Kashmir seminar, jointly organised by the Friends of Kashmir and the Kashmir Media Service, he said Pakistan had always extended its moral, political and diplomatic support for the just cause of Kashmiris and would continue to do so till freedom of the occupied territory.
The speakers said the Modi regime has usurped the rights of the minorities, especially the Muslims in the country and India has emerged as an extremist state where the existing minorities are facing prejudice, violence and oppression on a large scale. They said the Modi government is making discriminatory policies against all minorities and India has now become a very dangerous country for those who disagree with the government’s views.
The speakers said it was written in the Indian Constitution that the state will treat all religions equally and tolerantly, but in reality, the land was being narrowed in every way for the minorities living there and they were being forced to leave their religion and become Hindus.
How can Sikhs, living in India, forget Operation Blue Star when thousands of Sikhs were killed as a result of state terrorism, they added. The speakers, mentioning the occupied Jammu and Kashmir, said after 5th August 2019, the Modi government has accelerated the repression and tyranny in the territory and at this time the Kashmiris were being completely pushed towards the wall.
They deplored that India had adopted the same policy in the occupied territory which Israel was following in the occupied Palestine. They said that the main objective of the BharatiyaJanata Party government was to turn the majority of Muslims in IIOJK into a minority but the people of the occupied territory would foil all such nefarious designs of the Modi regime.
The speakers included former Azad Jammu and Kashmir President SardarYaqoob Khan, Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Khalil George, Senator MushahidHussain Syed, President of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Party Hasan Ibrahim, All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapter senior leader Muhammad FarooqRahmani, Syed FaizNaqshbandi, Chairperson of Friends of Kashmir International GhazalaHabib, Chairman of Kashmir Institute of International Relations AltafHussainWani, former federal minister J. Salik, Vice Chairman of Friends of Kashmir International Abdul Hameed Lone, Pakistani-American entrepreneur Abdul Hafeez Khan, Senator Danish Kumar, anchor Harmeet Singh and analyst Waqar Hassan.
