Pakistanis should rise and compel their government to withdraw a decision to grant most favoured nation status to arch rival India, a Kashmiri leader said on Sunday. Pakistan's cabinet last week announced that it had approved a proposal giving India the status of "most favoured nation" in a move towards normalising trade relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Kashmiri leaders rejected the deal saying it was being done under pressure from the United States.
"Pakistani government is taking dictation from America and this deal is also result of that dictation," Syed Ali Geelani said in a telephonic address to Muzaffarabad Press Club, from occupied Srinagar.
"It is a great source of pain for us to see Pakistan granting MFN status to India when Indian security forces are raping our women and destroying Islamic culture," said Geelani, who favours the region's accession to Pakistan.
"I appeal to the Pakistani nation to protest on this development so that the government is compelled to take back its decision," he said.
Raja Farooq Haider, Convenor of Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi, chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, assured support to Geelani. "The entire nation is ready. We will not step back an inch from our stance because freedom is our destination," Alvi said.