Academia can spread awareness on conditions of Kashmiri prisoners: Shehryar Afridi

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi on Thursday said the academia could play a vital role in spreading awareness on the miserable conditions of the Kashmiri prisoners who have been jailed by the Indian authorities.

Addressing the participants of a seminar at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) titled ‘The Iconic Prisoners of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’, he said that academia could add value to the national narrative on Kashmir dispute and it also needed to spread awareness among the youth on half widows, half orphans, demographic terrorism and other issues being faced by the Kashmiri people.

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He urged the world community to take notice of the travesty of justice being committed by occupational forces in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) against the political prisoners of Jammu and Kashmir.

Afridi said Indian occupational regime in Jammu and Kashmir was committing crime against iconic political prisoners including Dr Qasim Faktoo, Syed Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Masarrat Alam Bhat, Dr Asiya Andrabi, Naheeda Nasreen, Fehmeeda Sofi, Yaseen Malick and others.

He said Indian occupational forces were committing war crimes against the people of IIOJK but the world was ignoring Indian atrocities.

The chairman parliamentary committee on Kashmir said India was distorting history by producing movies and erasing history of Kashmiri freedom struggle under its nefarious design to mislead the world and the younger generations. He said the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir was working to preserve, promote and protect the Kashmiri culture.

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“Successful holding of the Kashmir Premier League (KPL) has proved the world that in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, tyranny and oppression is order of the day while Azad Kashmir is a developing and thriving part of Kashmir,” he said. He urged the youth to become bloggers and story tellers of Kashmir on social media which would help break shackles of Indian atrocities on social media.

He said the Pakistani youth could do wonders by educating the world through social media and also contribute to help build Pakistan’s case to shape world opinion on Kashmir through social media. He said India was bringing demographic change in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir which was a war crime and India was blatantly committing it with impunity.