MUZAFFARABAD: Chanting anti-India slogans, hundreds of people rallied on Tuesday in Azad Kashmir to mark the sixth anniversary of India’s revocation of the disputed region’s semi-autonomous status.
The rallies in the part of the disputed Kashmir region governed by Pakistan came nearly three months after Pakistan and India exchanged military strikes over a mass shooting in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, a charge Pakistan denied. The confrontation raised fears of a potential nuclear conflict before global powers defused the crisis.
The protesters denounced the August 5, 2019, revocation of Kashmir’s special status by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded the restoration of statehood for the Himalayan region, which has been split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.
The region has sparked two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors since 1947, when the nations gained independence from Britain.
The main protest Tuesday in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which is called Azad Kashmir, drew hundreds of members of civil society and political parties.
Mazhar Saeed Shah, a leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference — an alliance of pro-freedom Kashmiri political and religious groups — at the rally urged the international community to help ensure Kashmiris are granted the right to self-determination, as called for in UN resolutions decades ago.
Similar anti-India demonstrations were held in Islamabad, where Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s moral and diplomatic support for Kashmiris seeking what he called “freedom from India’s illegal occupation.”
Meanwhile in Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, supporters of India’s opposition Congress party rallied to demand that the government restore the statehood of the disputed region.
