ISLAMABAD-MIRPUR (AJK):Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan Thursday said that commendable sectarian harmony prevailed in AJK and there was complete religious freedom in the state.
He expressed this resolve to maintain the unity in upcoming holy month of Muharamul Haram along with taking all preventive measures to contain the spread of coronavirus during Eid ul Azha and Ashoora processions, AJK President office told media.
"All of us are unanimous on Islam, and complete unity will be demonstrated on the occasions of the upcoming Eidul Adha and Ashura," he declared.
The president was addressing through video link a meeting of the governors and religious scholars of all the four provinces of Pakistan as well as ulema from Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan chaired by President Dr. Mohammad Arif Alvi.
The conference was also addressed besides provincial governors, by the Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri and the Interior Minister Ijaz Shah, while in Muzaffarabad the new AJK Chief Secretary Dr. Shehzad Khan Bangash and other senior officials besides ulema attended the session through video link.
In his address, the AJK president said that the people had full freedom to live according to their thoughts and beliefs, and the state was the custodian of the life and property of people of all schools of thought.
He, however, lamented that on the other side of the Line of Control in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, our brothers and sisters were not only being kept deprived of religious freedom but the right to live was also being denied to them.
Tragically, he maintained that the Muslims were not allowed to go to the mosques and hold Majalis-e-Aza but the Indian Hindus were free to perform Amarnath Yatra in the held territory.
The AJK president said that in order to change the demography of the Muslim majority state of Kashmir, more than 32,000 Indian Hindus had been issued the domicile of Kashmir during the last two months while the state subjects were being deprived of their entity. "The youth are being subjected to target killings under the garb of fake encounters on daily basis or they are being arrested and severely tortured in jails," he pointed out.
He called upon the participants of the meeting besides approving a resolution against the Indian brutalities in occupied Kashmir, pray to Allah to rid the Kashmiri people of the Indian imperialistic repression at the earliest.
About coronavirus, the AJK president said that the situation was fully under control in Azad Kashmir, and due to effective measures taken by the state government, more than 1,000 affected people had recovered against the deaths of 46 people. He said that all possible preventive measures would be adopted during Eidul Adha and Asuhra Muharam to contain spread of pandemic.
Earlier addressing the meeting, Member of AJK Council of Islamic Ideology Allama Kifayat Hussain Naqvi and Chairman Jafria Supreme Council Syed Shabbir Hussain Bukhari said that the people of Azad Kashmir were the unpaid ideological defenders of Pakistan, and we would follow in letter and spirit whatever strategy the federal government adopts for Eidul Adha and Ashura.
They also appealed to the Pakistani people to set aside sectarian and other differences, and demonstrate complete unity in their rank and file for the sake of security and stability of Pakistan and to defeat the satanic Indian designs in region.
They particularly thanked the presidents of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir for convening this meeting, and holding consultations to evolve a strategy to ensure interfaith harmony and to prevent the spread of coronavirus.