MUZAFFARABAD: Activists of the women wing of Jamaat-i-Islami Azad Jammu and Kashmir staged a demonstration here on Thursday to express their support for the AJK education department’s recent edict to female students and teachers in co-education schools to wear veil.

“Hijab is part of my faith; Hijab is our pride,” read some of the placards they were holding during the demonstration staged on a main thoroughfare outside Press Club Muzaffarabad.

Appreciating the PTI government for the decision, they castigated the opposition PPP lawmakers for tabling an adjournment motion against it “in the name of civil liberties and personal freedom.”

Speaking to reporters, Faiza Saleem, an office-bearer of the JIAJK women wing, maintained that “since the 99 per cent population of the liberated territory comprised Muslims with strong attachment to religion, the decision by the education minister was exactly in accordance with the teachings of Islam and sentiments and aspirations of the local people.

“However, it’s deplorable that the PPP legislators opposed the move by tabling an adjournment motion against it in the Legislative Assembly. Indeed, they havehurt the feelings of the Kashmiri women,” she said.

Ms Saleem also scoffed at the “so-called liberals” in Pakistan for opposing the move “out of malice towards the religious rites and ignorance of the tendency of Kashmir people.”

She added: “Firstly, they have taken upon themselves to oppose anything linked with the religion to please their foreign masters and secondly they have no idea altogether of the Kashmiri society’s disposition to religion.”

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2023