MUZAFFARABAD   -  Caretaker Prime Minister An­waar-ul-Haq Kakar on Thursday reaffirmed Pakistan’s moral, po­litical and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir, and reject­ed the recent verdict of the Indian Supreme Court calling it a politi­cally motivated and a tool to con­solidate Indian illegal occupation.

The prime minister, in his ad­dress at the special session of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legisla­tive Assembly (AJK LA), called for India to desist from consolidating its occupation, revoke the illegal unilateral actions of August 5, 2019 and not change the demog­raphy of the disputed territory.

Chaired by AJK LA Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar, the ses­sion was attended by AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq and Assembly members.

PM Kakar also stressed upon India to halt the human rights abuses in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK), repeal emergency laws, withdraw heavy military pres­ence and provide unhindered ac­cess to the United Nations bodies and the international media.

The prime minister, who was the first-ever caretaker PM to address the AJK Legislative As­sembly, paid tribute to the mar­tyrs of the Kashmir movement and those living along the Line of Control and suffered losses due to the Indian ceasefire violations.

He said Pakistan would contin­ue to stand alongside the people of Kashmir in their struggle and wished them to enjoy their due rights. “Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein. The word ‘Pakistan’ is incomplete without Kashmir. The people of Pakistan and Kash­mir are bound by unique affinity. We share joys and sorrow. Paki­stan cannot remain indifferent to the situation in Kashmir... Kash­mir runs in our blood. Jammu and Kashmir remains an impor­tant facet of Pakistan’s foreign policy,” he remarked.

He said across the political di­vide, the entire Pakistani leader­ship stood united to support the Kashmiris for their right to self-determination. Giving a historical account, the prime minister said the Kashmiris had suffered enor­mously from conflicts in history. Even today, the situation had not improved as the majority was still under the subjugation of an op­pressor with a different name.

Prime Minister Kakar told the House that Kashmir was the old­est unsettled agenda of the United Nations as the UN Security Coun­cil resolutions remained unimple­mented and the Indian govern­ment was bent upon consolidating its occupation of disputed territo­ry through a series of legislative and administrative measures.

Referring to the Indian decision to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations and repeated Indi­an leaders recognizing it as a dis­pute, he said the current Indian government must honour its long-standing commitment to the UN resolutions.

He said the Indian SC verdict was politically motivated instead of grounded in law to validate the illegal unilateral measures of Au­gust 5, 2019. The prime minis­ter said considering its massive human rights abuses, the title of ‘world’s largest democracy’ for India should be changed to the ‘world’s largest hypocrisy’ where hollow slogans of democracy and diversity were raised to cover up the marginalization of minorities, state-sponsored terrorism and il­legal occupation.

Calling the Indian actions in IIO­JK a breach of the UN Charter, the UNSC resolutions and internation­al laws, he said the main objective of the Indian measures was to con­vert Kashmiris into a disempow­ered community in their land. 

However, he said, the domes­tic legislation and judicial verdicts could not absolve India of its obli­gations. He said on the one hand, India wished to become a perma­nent member of the UN Securi­ty Council, while on the other its leadership took pride in trampling upon international laws. Such contradictions reinforced by the Hindutva ideology should be an eye-opener for the international community, he added.

He said thousands of Kashmiris had been killed, thousands faced forced disappearances and pel­let gun injuries, and thousands of the women suffered molesta­tion, while the human rights abus­es were also documented in two of the UN reports.

Questioning the conscience of the international community, he said despite killings, illegal de­tention of Kashmiri leaders and destruction of structures, India could not undermine their resolve for freedom. He said India was afraid of Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani even after his death and sought the death penalty for an­other leader Yaseen Malik which manifested its failure to suppress the spirit of freedom.

He said Pakistan and the Kash­miris rejected the Indian mea­sures of gerrymandering of con­stituencies and measures to change the demography.

The prime minister said the Kashmiris had long been deprived of normalcy in their land also ham­pering the development owing to the fearful environment. 

He said Pakistan wanted good neighbourly ties with India but its unilateral actions of August 5, 2019 had vitiated the environ­ment leaving the onus on it to undo the situation. 

Pakistan wanted peace with jus­tice, not peace with injustice, he added. 

Coming to the belligerent state­ments by the Indian leaders re­garding the AJK, the prime min­ister reiterated that Pakistan had exercised maximum restraint. Pakistan would never surrender to any form of threat or intimida­tion as it stood firm to safeguard its sovereignty and interests.