Bukhari urges Pakistani community to highlight human rights abuses of besieged Kashmiris

• On other matters, Bukhari assured the community members that PIA flights to New York would resume as soon as was possible.
• Pakistani community members to spare no effort in ensuring the success of the September 27 demonstration in front of the United Nations Building.

NEW YORK: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari has called on Pakistani community members to spare no effort in ensuring the success of the September 27 demonstration in front of the United Nations Building to protest against India's illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir and to demand that the world body to implement its resolutions on the decades-old dispute.

Addressing a large gathering in Queens, a borough of New York City, he said that the people of occupied Kashmir were languishing under a punishing lockdown for over a month now with communications and internet connections cutoff, thousands of people arrested along with their political leaders.

"They are living under a siege the disputed state has been turned into a prison," Bukhari said,  while urging members of the community, which included representatives from other Pakistani political parties and activists, to highlight the issue of gross violations of human rights of the Kashmiri people in their interaction with their fellow citizens and their lawmakers.

Much more than being an India-Pakistan dispute, the Indian crackdown in Kashmir is a human rights issue, he said.

Before Bukhari's speech, the gathering was addressed by the PTI's overseas leader Abdullah Riar and the party's USA chief, Parvez Riaz, as well as representatives of other political parties and organizations, including former APPNA President, Dr. Asif Rehman, Seemi Asad of PPP, Aslam Dhallon of Pakistani American New York (PANY) and Kashmiri and rights activists -- Chaudhry Zahoor, Faiq Siddiqui,  Khawar Baig and Sam Khan.

In their remarks, they vowed to stand in solidarity with the suffering Kashmiri people and to make the Sept 27 protest rally a huge success.

Bukhari urged Pakistanis to act as hosts at the rally in which people from a number of other countries, especially from the Muslim world, would take part, saying, "Let them take the lead."

He said there should be no party flags, only those of Pakistan and Kashmir.

On other matters, Bukhari assured the community members that PIA flights to New York would resume as soon as was possible.

He also told the gathering about the progress being made under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Pakistan, he said, was the best country for investment and it would rapidly develop to its full potential.