MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar on Monday warned of an upswing in anti-Pakistan sentiments and activities in India ahead of the country’s general elections next year, saying the recent ceasefire violation at the Line of Control (LoC) was its precursory version.

“The fascist Indian government under Narendra Modi is inciting anti-Pakistan sentiments to clinch next year’s parliamentary elections,” he said at a media talk, adding Saturday’s naked aggression in Tetrinote sector which left two innocent people on our side martyred and another wounded was its clear manifestation.

The Legislative Assembly speaker, who was accompanied by Mian Abdul Waheed and Bazil Ali Naqvi, ministers without portfolios from his party, apprehended that India could resort to more provocative incidents at the LoC in the coming days.

“I am also afraid the BJP-RSS regime may execute the incarcerated JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik in its desperate efforts to win the sympathies of Hindu hardliners,” he said.

He called upon the government of Pakistan to exploit and expedite diplomatic efforts to forestall any attempt to execute Mr Malik under his politically manipulated conviction as well as the unprecedented atrocities within the occupied territory and escalations along the LoC.

He recalled that India had failed to achieve results it desired from the controversial G20 huddle in occupied Kashmir and prior to that the SCO conference in Goa, which was why it was looking for other excuses to fulfil its nefarious designs.

He called upon the United Nations and other international organisations to take notice of the inhuman actions of India’s fanatic regime both within India and occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Akbar, who is a senior leader of the PPP, asserted that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had presented the Kashmir case at every forum with full force and reason, for which the Kashmiris owed him gratitude.

“I am sure that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will continue to represent Kashmiris in the same way in future,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Waheed pointed out that across the world parties sought vote on the basis of their manifestos, envisaging economic progress and public welfare, but in India votes were solicited by inciting anti-Pakistan sentiments.

He said Mr Modi was in the US when his army targeted innocent and unarmed civilians in an unprovoked ceasefire violation in Tetrinote sector, something which should be alarming for the whole world in general and Washington in particular.

Mr Waheed, who has returned from the lower belt of Neelum valley, which has long borne the brunt of escalations at the LoC, lamented that the silence of the big powers, US being on the top, was encouraging India to carry on its bloodthirstiness in occupied Kashmir.

He noted that the LoC ran along AJK’s 14 electoral constituencies and years of indiscriminate shelling from across the divide had failed to break the spirits of the local population.

“If India thinks it can achieve this target by killing innocent citizens, it is mistaken,” he said, adding people in AJK would frustrate the enemy’s evil designs shoulder to shoulder with their armed forces.

“We have full faith in the competence and professionalism of our forces who know how to defend their people and frontiers.”

In response to a question, both Mr Akbar and Mr Waheed said the Kashmiris were satisfied with the message given by the government of Pakistan in its response to the Tetrinote incident.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2023