Pakistan exposes itself yet again, with forked tongue on Kashmir, terrorism

Two gatherings, 100 kilometres apart in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) — the people in attendance and their speeches — perfectly capture why Pakistan remains beyond reform. While Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif from Muzaffarabad called for peace talks with India, Islamabad allowed the hosting of a gun-brandishing rally and a conference in POK’s Rawalakote. The latter was attended by terrorists from Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), groups that have long targeted India, where anti-India slogans were also raised. Also, present were leaders of Hamas, the Gaza-based terror outfit.

Pakistan’s contradictory messaging on Wednesday, as it observed the propagandist “Kashmir Solidarity Day”, only revealed its duplicity on terrorism and Kashmir. It preached peace while openly platforming terror. Meanwhile, Islamabad has also agreed to host 15 Palestinian prisoners freed under a ceasefire deal with Israel, according to an Arab News report.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for peace talks with India. He said Pakistan wanted to resolve all issues, including Kashmir, through dialogue with India. The peace overture came while Sharif was addressing a special session of the POK Assembly in Muzaffarabad on “Kashmir Solidarity Day”.

“We want all issues, including Kashmir, to be resolved through talks,” he said.

Sharif asserted that “India should come out of the thinking by August 5, 2019, and fulfil promises made to the UN and launch a dialogue”. His remark was in reference to the Narendra Modi-led Centre scrapping Article 370 that revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.

However, New Delhi has repeatedly repatriated its stand on Kashmir and terrorism.

India has asserted that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh “was, is and shall forever” remain an integral part of the country. On terror, India has also made it clear that bilateral relations with Pakistan can only progress in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence.

But it looks like the Islamic Republic has not noted any of it.

Precisely 105 km away from where Sharif preached ‘peace’, in PoK’s Rawalakote, top leaders of terrorist organisations participated in an event titled “Kashmir Solidarity and Hamas Operation ‘Al Aqsa Flood’ Conference”.

The gathering consisted of Talha Saif, brother of JeM chief Masood Azhar. Jaish leaders Asghar Khan Kashmiri and Masood Ilyas, LeT’s top leaders, and Khalid Al-Qadoumi, Hamas’s representative in Iran, for the first time, Hamas participated in an event in PoK.

LeT and JeM have both been involved in some of the most horrific terror attacks in India, including, the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot attack and the 2019 Pulwama attack.

Not just the terrorist leaders of Pakistan, Hamas spokesman Khalid Al-Qadoumi also met the hardline Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

The JUI, now in the Opposition, was a part of the anti-PTI coalition led by Sharif’s Muslim League, that opposed Imran Khan and his party before their ouster from power. The Islamic fundamentalist JUI is Pakistan’s “biggest religio-political party” with the largest “proven street power”, according to a report by Karachi-based The News International.

The presence of these terror outfits at the conference hosted by the government of Pakistan showed that Pakistan has not stopped backing extremism. Meanwhile, it has regularly denied backing them elsewhere in the world.

The presence of Hamas at the conference also showed how Pakistan’s terrorists had links to international terror networks. Hamas has been active in the Middle East, fighting a year-long war with Israel.