Entire nation on same page on Kashmir issue: Rashid

RAWALPINDI: Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has reiterated Pakistan’s resolve to continue its moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri brethren in their struggle to self-determination.
The interior minister was addressing a public rally in Rawalpindi on Friday in connection with Kashmir Solidarity Day.
The minister said that the whole nation including all political parties are on the same page on the Kashmir issue. He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has successfully been raising the Kashmir issue on world forums, besides his struggle to steer the country out of economic trouble.
He said that Indian troops have broken all the records of barbarity and atrocities in occupied Kashmir. “Kashmiris are facing suppression at the hands of Indian army, whereas the Modi administration has been attempting to turn the Muslim majority into a minority,” he said. The Kashmiri students are fully active to free Kashmir from bloody clutches of India, he said.
He said that Pakistani nation is united over the Kashmir issue and they want to solve the issue as per the aspirations of innocent Kashmiris. He urged the international community to play their role to stop human right violations in the Indian held Kashmir. “Modi government is making efforts to make demographic changes in the valley and it is a violation of the UN resolution,” he said.
Later, the minister, while talking to media men, said both Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are violating their commitment to the Charter of Democracy by opting for undemocratic moves. He said PPP and PML-N had signed the Charter of Democracy in 2006 but now their actions are against it.
He said that mosques and seminaries are the fortress of Islam and nobody will be allowed to use seminary students for political goals.
About the expected resignations of opposition from the Parliament, he expressed hope that the opposition parties would not resign from the Parliament and their agitation would be limited to long march and no confidence move against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
He said that sit-in in front of Parliament and long marches would not topple the governments. While giving an example of Imran Khan’s PTI sit-in in 2014, the minister said, “We along with Imran Khan staged a sit-in in front of the Parliament for 126 days but failed to oust then Nawaz Sharif-led government.”
He said that the PTI government is going to complete three-year tenure and it has only one year to deliver because the fifth year will be for an election campaign. The only panacea of all problems in politics is in table talks and dialogue process is a basic part of democracy. There is no dead end in politics and democracy will strengthen through dialogue process, said Rashid.
To a question about his contacts with PPP, Federal Minister of Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said that he had no contact with PPP but in the meantime he congratulated Asif Ali Zardari on Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari’s wedding and prayed for her good start to a new life. – TLTP