PESHAWAR: Residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) held ceremonies on Monday to observe Kashmir Solidarity Day.
There was greater enthusiasm for the celebrations this year due to the continuing rebellion against Indian forces in the disputed region.
“Compared to previous years, the number of Kashmir Day ceremonies has escalated quite significantly,” Mohammed Muazzam Butt, who manages a Peshawar-based think tank, the Jammu and Kashmir Council, told Arab News.
“People are not only expressing solidarity with the indigenous independence movement in Kashmir but are also protesting Indian brutalities over there,” he said.
He said that the intensity of Kashmir-related events would increase as the issue was “getting international attention due to the human rights violations committed by Indian forces.”
“Our think tank seeks to project the Kashmir cause,” he said. “This requires us to highlight the realities in Indian-administered Kashmir within the context of various provisions of international law.”
Pakistan observes Kashmir Solidarity Day on Feb. 5 each year. The tradition has continued for many decades since the armed uprising first began in the northernmost region of the subcontinent.
Qaiser Alam, KPK’s information secretary, told Arab News that various provincial departments had also arranged Kashmir Day programs.
“We have also brought out special newspaper supplements to underscore the freedom struggle by the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir,” he said.
One of KPK’s official Kashmir Day events attracted members of the province’s ruling coalition. Organized by KPK’s Directorate of Culture, the ceremony was designed to emphasize the Kashmir people’s right to self-determination. Participants carried banners with slogans supporting Kashmir’s struggle for freedom.
The residents of the country’s northwestern tribal territories also observed the occasion with enthusiasm.
In Khyber Agency, Landi Kotal Falahi Tanzeem held a walk to express solidarity with the people of Kashmir. Akhtar Ali, the Tanzeem’s president, said that tribal people wanted a permanent solution to the Kashmir issue.
“The fundamental objective of our demonstration is to raise awareness among people and urge the international community to resolve the issue in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people,” he said. “Other than that, it is important to bring an end to Indian aggression as well.”
Professor Zahid Anwar, an academic from the University of Peshawar, described the Kashmir dispute as “the unfinished agenda of Partition,” claiming that it had resulted in numerous casualties and much violence due to the “illegal Indian occupation of the region.”
“Despite the presence of the Indian army in large numbers, Kashmiris hoist Pakistan’s national flag everywhere. This should open the eyes of the international community, which must prevent human rights violations over there.”
He said that it was important to observe Feb. 5 as Kashmir Solidarity Day as it highlighted the significance of resolving the Kashmir dispute, which would “ensure peace in the region and avoid any confrontation between Pakistan and India, the two South Asian nuclear-weapon states.”
However, Professor Sarfaraz Khan, who teaches international relations at the University of Peshawar, said that Pakistan- and Indian-administered Kashmir had their own constitutions, and the two countries should try to promote peace in the region.
“The people of both countries are suffering because of the Kashmir issue,” he said. “Both states are spending substantial resources on weapons. This is not good for their citizens whose well-being is usually ignored.”
Kashmir Day observed in Pakistan’s KPP province with greater enthusiasm this year
Kashmir Day observed in Pakistan’s KPP province with greater enthusiasm this year
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Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
MELBOURNE, Australia: A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, according to Australian police documents released on Monday.
The documents, made public following Naveed Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury, said the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
The state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred Monday from a hospital to a prison. Authorities identified neither facility.
The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode, the documents said.
Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before they left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV recorded them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade Daesh group flags wrapped in blankets.
Police also released images of the gunmen shooting from a footbridge, providing them with an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.
The largest IED was found after the gunbattle near the footbridge in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped with the flags.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him with his father expressing “their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State,” police said, using another term for the Daesh Group.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
An impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed Monday as the beachfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will preserve part of the memorial.
Victims’ funerals continued Monday with French national Dan Elkayam’s service held in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago.
The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Monday.
