MUZAFFARABAD, Dec 1: A senior parliamentarian from the main opposition party has questioned the support by the AJK cabinet to the state of emergency imposed in Pakistan. PPAJK secretary-general and MLA Chaudhry Latif Akbar said it was an ‘illogical and undemocratic’ stance on behalf of the cabinet which had sent a negative message across the Line of Control and weakened the Kashmir case in the international forums.

“A government which supports a step that suppresses human rights, civil liberties and freedom of the media and the judiciary loses all moral right to criticise a similar treatment in occupied Kashmir by the Indian government,” Chaudhry Akbar said at a news conference here on Friday.

He was of the view that by imposing a virtual martial law in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf had done a great damage to the Kashmir cause, besides his own country.

“We the Kashmiris are struggling for right to self-determination and right to vote is also a form of self-determination. When you deprive your own people of this right and slaughter the justice, how can you advocate similar rights for others,” he asked.

He criticised Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan for his statement that the AJK government wanted to maintain a working relationship with the occupied Kashmir government.

“Our official stance for decades has been that the government in Srinagar does not represent the Kashmiris. Instead, the government in Muzaffarabad represents the whole state and allocation of 12 seats for Kashmiri refugees settled in Pakistan bears testimony to it. The statement of Sardar Attique amounts to betrayal of Kashmiris’ stand and smacks of division of Kashmir,” he added.

Even if Pakistan suggested anything like this, the AJK government should oppose it, he said.

Chaudhry Akbar called upon the Kashmiris in Pakistan to vote for the PPP in the coming elections and said that PPAJK leaders would actively take part in the election campaign of their party.