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Agra summit betrayed us: PoK groups

Sanjay Suri in London

Groups fighting for independence within Pakistan occupied Kashmir say the Agra summit betrayed their needs.

"The Pakistani side conveniently bypassed our struggle and the Indians failed to bring it up," the leader of a prominent Kashmiri group told rediff.com on the telephone from PoK on Tuesday.

The leader said he did not want to be identified because President Pervez Musharraf had ordered a crackdown on Kashmiri groups struggling for their rights within Pakistan.

The leaders of many groups were arrested in Rawalpindi earlier this year when they took out a procession to hand over a charter of demands to the local UN office. That crackdown led to protests by Kashmiri groups within Pakistan and outside. In Britain leaders of these groups picketed the Pakistani high commission twice in protest.

The demonstrations followed the arrest of 14 pro-independence leaders in Rawalpindi on February 12. The arrested leaders include Shaukat Maqbool Butt, president of the Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front and son of Maqbool Butt who was hanged in an Indian prison in February 1984.

"Our struggle has grown over the years and we are now fighting from a common platform," the Kashmiri leader from PoK said. Several of these groups have formed the All Parties National Alliance to fight for the rights of Kashmiris on the Pakistan side.

"In Azad Kashmir a Kashmiri cannot fight an election without swearing allegiance to Pakistan," he told rediff.com, "and nobody raises a voice over the condition of 1.5 million people in 28,000 square miles of Gilgit and Baltistan." In this area, he added, there had not even been "token elections" in the last 53 years.

"This denial of basic rights makes a complete mockery of Pakistan's demand for self-determination in Kashmir on the Indian side. It suits Pakistan to crush us, but why didn't India raise this issue?" he asked.

The main newspaper in Gilgit, K2, had been shut down by the Pakistani authorities, the leader said. Journalists were detained and public protests banned. But little attention was paid by the international media to suppression of basic rights in the Pakistani side of Kashmir, he complained.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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