Zubair Qureshi
Islamabad
Following years long tradition, the Nazriya Pakistan Council (NPC) on Friday held Fateha Khawani at the Faisal Masjid for the departed soul of the Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah on his 71st death anniversary (Died: Sept 11, 1948).
A large number of the faithful participated in the collective Dua after the Friday prayers led by prayer-leader Dr Hafiz Muhammad Anwar.
Senior Vice Chairman of NPC, Mian Muhammad Javed, NPC Executive Secretary and Executive Editor of Pakistan Observer Gauhar Zahid Malik and Group Managing Editor of Pakistan Observer Omar Zahid Malik also attended the Fathea Khawani and Dua.
The ceremony held after Friday prayers and the participants paid rich tributes to the Father of the Nation for achieving a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. They called him a great statesman and visionary leader.
Addressing on the occasion, Dr Hafiz Muhammad Anwar said freedom was a great gift of God and only those nations can value this gift that have been either under occupation and suppression by the foreign forces or are waging a freedom struggle for independence.
He particularly mentioned ordeal of the Kashmiri Muslims in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) where the occupying Indian forces were violating rules and laws and denying the local population fundamental human rights.
He asked the congregation gathered in the illuminating prayer hall of the mosque to remember those living in the occupied valley in the worst conditions as fascist Modi government’s imposed curfew enters 46th day.
Pakistan he said is a great blessing of Almighty Allah and today even the Muslim leaders of the IOK who opposed Pakistan in 1947 are compelled to pay tribute to Quaid-i-Azam’s vision who rightly foresaw rising Hindu nationalism and difficult times for the Muslims if they didn’t get a homeland of their own.
It is because of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his foresight that today we are able to live a peaceful, free life.
In Quaid’s own words, Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir and Kashmir remains to be unfinished agenda of division of India.
It is the responsibility of the international community,
the UN to implement its resolutions for right of self-determination to the Kashmiris and resolve this 72-year old dispute between India and Pakistan.
He said Muslims in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Palestine and India were facing worst kind of oppression, persecution and threat to their lives and properties. He prayed that one day they would get their freedom and be liberated from oppressors.
Senior staff members of the council including Director Programmes, Ishrat Masoom, Director Administration Zaheer Chaudhry and Director Media Anjum Khaliq were also present on the occasion.
