AJK President calls for world’s vibrant role to prevent nuclear conflict in S. Asia

• Masood Khan calls upon Muslims across the world to unite and invest in promoting education, technology.
• Masood says people living in the occupied territory have been detained in their own homes under the garb of incessant curfew restrictions.

MIRPUR (AJK): President, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Sardar Masood Khan called upon Muslims across the world to unite and invest in promoting education, technology and economy to relieve the Muslim Ummah of agonies particularly oppression.

He made these remarks while interacting with a delegation of the US Coalition of Muslim Organizations, which called on him in Washington under the leadership of its General Secretary Ousamma Jammal, says an official statement released to the media by AJK Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday.

Apprising the delegation of flagrant human rights abuses in occupied Kashmir, the AJK President said through August 5 actions, India had reoccupied the disputed territory and now it is attempting to colonize it. "The people living in the occupied territory have been detained in their own homes under the garb of incessant curfew restrictions," he added.

He commended the efforts of the USCMO for raising critical awareness on Kashmir, and said that collective strengths were needed to be continued to synergize to help alleviate the sufferings of Kashmiri people.

"There is also a need to engage lawmakers in encouraging hearings on Kashmir in the US House’s Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations," he said and added that debates on Kashmir have to be initiated in Congress.

The president said that the growing Hindu extremism is an existential threat to Muslims and all other minorities living in South Asia. Extremist ideologies advocating concepts like Ghar Wapsi (return to Hinduism), Love Jihad (opposition to Muslim-Hindu marriages) and Gao Raksha (prohibition of eating cow meat) have become the norm in the so-called "secular" India, he added.

Sardar Masood Khan urged the USCMO delegation to continue to communicate with lawmakers, international human rights organizations and civil rights activists and help stop the grave human rights violations taking place in occupied Kashmir, and also exert pressure on the UN Security Council to revoke the unilateral steps taken by the Indian government and urge to take practical steps to ensure the right to self-determination for the Kashmiri people.

Lamenting the passive role of the UN Secretary-General and the UN Security Council, he said that they have to realize the gravity of the situation in the disputed territory and forgo their anodyne approach to the crisis.

He said that due to India’s aggressive militaristic policy there is a very real threat of nuclear war between the two states and the global community must make every endeavor to avert war.

On this occasion, Ousamma Jammal told the AJK president that 33-member USCMO has over the years been addressing issues related to Muslim ummah including the growing of Islamophobia and prejudices against Muslims.

He said that the USCMO has actively approached and reached out to the US State Department, the UN Under-Secretary, the OIC secretariat, the US and EU Missions to the United Nations, and numerous Congressional leaders to highlight the plight of the Kashmiri people.

"Concerted efforts are being made to gain support of Senators and elected representative to move a resolution on Kashmir in the US House of Representatives and the Senate," he said adding that the organization had also approached the Indian Embassy for a meeting with the Indian ambassador but no response has so far been received from them.

Expressing solidarity with the Kashmiri people, he said that their heart and prayers go out to their Kashmiri brethren who are suffering from India’s repression and illegal occupation of their homeland.

Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Vice Presidents Mohsin Ansari, Usama Aburashied and ICNA Executive Director Zahid Bukhari were also present on the occasion.