News East-West
NEW DELHI: Mad mullah and Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed says India will have to “leave Kashmir.”
Addressing a rally in Lahore to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day on Tuesday, the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack said, “No one could defeat the Muslims… If America had to run away, then India, you will have to leave Kashmir as well.”
Express Tribune reported him as saying that “India’s army of 800,000 will lose… Kashmiris will get independence.”
As his supporters chanted ‘al-jihad, al-jihad,’ Saeed said his wish is to see the Indian part of Kashmir united with Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Pakistan refers to its held Kashmir part as Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK).
February 5 – a public holiday – has been observed as Kashmir Solidarity Day in Pakistan since when Pakistani-backed militancy started in the Kashmir Valley. Apart from a one-minute silence, rallies, processions, seminars and photo exhibitions are held in Pakistan and its missions abroad.
Rallies, demonstrations, human chains by men, women and children were seen at various points across the country as well as in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and at the connecting points between Pakistan and AJK to express solidarity with the struggling Kashmiris despite heavy rain in the area, according to the Express report.
People formed human chains at Kohalla‚ Azad Patan and Mangla bridges connecting Azad Kashmir with Pakistan in rainy weather.
The report said the main function of the day was a joint session of the AJK Legislative Assembly and AJK Council at Muzaffarabad. Free ration-packages on behalf of the people and the government were distributed among Kashmiri refugees at their camps situated in Muzaffarabad‚ Bagh‚ Kotli and Rawalakot districts.
Jammu and Kashmir was one of the hundreds of princely states in India at the time of its independence in August 1947. Every state was given the choice of joining either India or Pakistan. Hari Singh, the maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir whose 87% population was Muslim, dilly-dallied till the last minute. Taking advantage of his stance, Pakistan army-backed irregulars attacked the state to force him to join Pakistan. Hari Singh appealed to India’s last and first governor general Mountbatten to help him. As a result, Indian troops landed in Kashmir and cleared it of Paksitani irregulars in much of the area except what is now called PoK.
Pakistan has gone to three wars with India to gain control of the Kashmir Valley.