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UN resolutions on AJK still stir controversy

MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 5:  Rallies were held in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) to mark the January 5, 1949 UN Security Council resolution on Kashmir, which gave the Kashmiri people the right, through adult franchise, to either chose India or Pakistan. Although it was never implemented.

Some groups in AJK out rightly reject the resolution, while others support it.

Activists of pro-independence National Students Federation (NSF) held a rally here on Saturday, to reject the UN resolution. The rally started from Upper Adda with NSF activists holding red party flags, chanting slogans against accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to any of the two South Asian neighbours – Pakistan and India.

“Please break the forced relations. Leave our Kashmir,” they shouted.

The NSF rally followed the same route from where activists of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) had earlier paraded. However, the administration did not allow them to get close to the press club, where HM Commander Syed Salahuddin was addressing a crowded press conference.

Angry NSF activists staged a sit-in on the main thoroughfare for about an hour, blocking movement of traffic. However, later they dispersed peacefully.

Speaking to Dawn on the occasion, NSF secretary general Kamran Baig and others said that every conscientious Kashmiri rejected the January 5, 1949 resolution because it had restricted the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people to accession.

“For the last 65 years, Kashmiris are being blackmailed in the name of freedom. Today the elements who made properties and bank balances on the bodies of 100,000 Kashmiri martyrs are again out to play a dirty game which we condemn vehemently,” Mr Baig said.

He said that his organisation would resist all such moves aimed at disintegrating the state of Kashmir by forces “inimical to true freedom of Kashmiris.”

http://dawn.com/2013/01/06/un-resolutions-on-ajk-still-stir-controversy/