GLASGOW (Scotland): Exiled rights activist from PoK, Amjad Ayub Mirza, on Sunday called out Pakistan’s PM-elect Shehbaz Sharif over raking up (India-administered) Kashmir in his victory speech in the National Assembly, saying he spouted ‘lies’ about the region.
Coming down heavily on the PM-designate over what he said were factually incorrect claims about Kashmir, the activist said the former doesn’t have the ‘guts’ to acknowledge and own up to the ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
“In Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, people en masse are starving. The government servants have not been paid wages for months. The pensioners are waiting for their pensions for nearly a year now. Several departments and several sectors of economy, people working in them, have not been paid their wages. There is no flower. There is no medicine in the hospitals. There is no snake bite or dog bite vaccines available in the hospitals,” the activist said in a personalised video address from Scotland on Sunday.
“There is no rural health centre in Pakistani-occupied Jammu Kashmir that has even got a dispenser there to cater for the needs of the local villagers. Their education system has collapsed totally. There is not a single country that recognizes the degrees obtained by Pakistani-occupied Jammu-Kashmir students as legitimate. The situation is so dire that on the 5th of March, for the fourth time, the people of Pakistani-occupied Jammu and Kashmir will be on the streets protesting. But the Prime Minister of Pakistan did not have the guts, did not have the courage to recognize the humanitarian crisis that the people of Pakistani-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are going through,” he added.
He claimed further that the government under the leadership of Shehbaz Sharif would not be able to represent the “true interests of the people of PoK”.
“He (Pak PM) did not have the guts to say a word about The electricity boycott campaign that has been going on from August last year. He did not mention anything for development or for providing wheat and flour to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. The people of Pakistani-occupied Jammu Kashmir and Pakistani-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan face a siege for 76 years by the Pakistan army and the Pakistan military establishment. Therefore, the people of Pakistani-occupied Jammu, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are very clear in their minds that this government, this new government under the leadership of Shahbaz Sharif, Prime Minister, is not going to represent the true interests of the people of Pakistani-occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Earlier, on Sunday, addressing the National Assembly after being picked by the majority members in the House as the next PM, Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday called out the ‘global silence’ on the prevailing situation in Gaza while seeking a bipartisan resolution in the House advocating ‘freedom’ for Kashmiris and Palestinians, Dawn reported.
“Let’s all come together…and the National Assembly should pass a resolution for the freedom of Kashmiris and Palestinians,” Shehbaz said in his ‘victory speech’ in the Assembly.
The National Assembly elected the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader as the 24th elected PM during a session that opened with a ruckus created by members of Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), a rival ccombine that also includes winning PTI-backed Independents.
Meanwhile, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said his party leadership decided in favour of attending to the Assembly despite its reservations over the poll outcome in the country.
Despite taking part in the session of the newly elected National Assembly, Rehman said his party’s original position to reject the 2024 elections was being proven right.
“In the history of Pakistan, we used to think that 2018 was the biggest rigging that took place in the general election, however, 2024 has broken that record,” Rehman said in Karachi. (ANI)
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