Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamaatud Dawa on Wednesday took out rallies to express solidarity with Kashmiris on Kashmir Day.
Jamaatud Dawa took its rally from Chauburji Chowk to Masjid-i-Shuhada on The Mall. JI’s activists marched from Nasser Bagh to Masjid-i-Shuhada.
Addressing the rally participants, Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed said peace in Afghanistan was impossible as long as India had a presence there.
He urged the prime minister to cut off diplomatic ties with India.
He opposed the most favoured nation status for India and said there should be no trade with it. He said India should be stopped from constructing a wall along the border.
He said peace would be assured if the government adopted the policies he had suggested.
He said there would be no Taliban if Pakistan stopped helping the United States in the War on Terror and if it cut off ties with India.
He said NATO forces in Afghanistan had failed and lacked a safe exit. He said Kashmir belonged to Kashmiris and India had no right over it.
The JI rally was led by Fareed Paracha and Allama Zubair Ahmed Zaheer.
Addressing the JI rally, Mariam Ridley, a British journalist who has embraced Islam, said she wanted to visit Kashmir but the Indian government had not given her permission to go there.
She said 11,000 Kashmiris had been tortured to death.
She said there were no consistent reports about the atrocities being committed in Kashmir.
She said the United Nations had failed the people of Kashmir.
Dr Farid Piracha paid tributes to Kashmiris for their struggle. He accused the UN of deliberately ignoring the Kashmir issue.
JI Punjab chief Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had no mandate for friendship with India.
He said the nation had trusted him with resolving social and economic problems and ensuring liberation of Kashmir.
Separately, JI general secretary Liaqat Baloch held a meeting with British High Commissioner Phillip Barton and discussed the Kashmir issue.
The JI general secretary impressed upon the British diplomat that the solution of the Kashmir issue was a pressing matter.
He said world peace was impossible unless the Kashmir and Palestine conflicts were resolved.
He said India had denied 1.6 million Kashmiris the right to self-determination. He said the international community was indifferent to the plight of the Kashmiris.
Aalmi Majlis Tahfafuz Khatm-i-Nabuwat also held a seminar for Kashmir Dat.
Addressing participants, Maulana Qari Jameelur Rehman Akhtar said many Kashmiris had laid down their lives for independence of their land.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 6th, 2014.