ISLAMABAD: Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, the special representative of the prime minister for interfaith harmony and the Middle East, said on Wednesday that it was unacceptable for India to host the G20 summit in occupied Kashmir. In an interview , he urged the G20 nations not to attend the gathering that India had organized in occupied Kashmir because India was persistently breaking international law and UN resolutions. According to reports, Srinagar, India, will host the third meeting of the G20 Tourism Working Group from May 22 to 24.
Ashrafi who is also the chairman of Pakistan Ulema Council, informed that Ulema and religious leaders of other faith were planning to hold a world conference here in November in which Pope Francis, Sheikh Al-Azhar, Imam of the Holy Kaaba and important leaders of the Islamic world would be invited.
He said the Council had an important role against extremism, terrorism and sectarianism and urged the leaders of all religions to pay attention on the situation in Palestine and Kashmir as practical steps were needed to stop the atrocities being committed by India and Israel in the Occupied Kashmir and Palestine respectively.
He said that India wanted to create unrest in the region as its atrocities were increasing in the Occupied Kashmir with every passing day.
He expressed the hope that India would not be able to take religious scholars included in G20 in the Occupied Kashmir. The Pakistan Ulema Council in consultation with government official and institution concerned would announce a future strategy soon in this regard, he maintained.
Ashrafi said Ulema and Mashaykh would observe as an ‘Ashra of reverence of Haramain Sharifain and Al-Aqsa’ from Ramazan 21, to 29 across the country.
Meanwhile, Senior APHC leader Nayeem Ahmed Khan has made a passionate appeal to member countries of Group Twenty (G-20) urging them to refrain from participating in the group’s upcoming events being purposefully hosted by India in the UN-recognized disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
In a statement issued here Wednesday, the illegally incarcerated Hurriyat leader, while condemning the Modi government’s crafty move, reminded the members of G-20 that Jammu and Kashmir is an issue that has been on the UNSC’s agenda for more than 70 years.
Terming the Indian move as a deep-rooted conspiracy to deflect world attention away from the real issue, Khan said that G-20 members who have a remarkable human rights track record should skip the summit events being held in the disputed region and pursue the government of India to resolve the lingering dispute in line with the UN security council resolutions.
“IT would be a great travesty of justice on the part of G-20 nations to offer India, the usurper of Kashmir, an opportunity to pose as a responsible stakeholder by participating in the leaders’ summit in the territory that it had occupied illegally in brazen violations of international law and norms of justice”, Khan said, adding that it was high time that the member countries of the Group should come clean on the issue and hold India accountable for the massive human rights violations being committed by its troops.
Khan said that G20 leaders should publicly condemn the Indian government’s crimes against humanity and targeting innocent Kashmiris in the held territory.
“Economic interests should not prevent G-20 nations from directly and publicly challenging India over its belligerent policy on Kashmir and rights violations taking place in the region”, he said.
Urging the G-20 nations to stay away from the summit events being held in the disputed territory, the APHC leader said that by hosting such events, Modi’s government was trying to portray normalcy in the region.
He said that all that the world needs to realize was that the Indian-held territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been classified as the highest militarized zone in the world where humans live without human rights.
