ISLAMABAD: Former Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Member of National Assembly (MNA), Shehryar Khan Afridi hosted a luncheon meeting in honour of former Danish Parliamentarian Sikandar Siddique.

The meeting, attended by PTI lawmakers Ali Mohammad Khan and Shandana Gulzar Khan and others, focused on matters of mutual interest.

Shehryar Khan Afridi deplored the new curbs being imposed to muzzle the right to religious freedom of Kashmiri Muslims in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and urged Sikandar Siddique to raise the matter at all the platforms of the European Union and other related forums.

He told the former Danish MP that the father-in-law of Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq, Dr Ghulam Sibtain Masoodi passed away on Wednesday, but the occupying Indian forces didn’t allow his funeral prayers in Jamia Masjid Srinagar.

He said that just as the holy month of Ramazan is about to start, young girls in Kashmir are distributing copies of the Quran in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk were arrested by Indian forces on the pretext that it’s not allowed to distribute religious books publicly. Last year, Taraveeh prayers were not allowed to be offered in Srinagar, he added.

Afridi said that Kashmir is a Muslim-dominated region where alcohol is banned. However, he asserted that due to the influx of non-Muslim settlers, the occupying regime is lifting the ban on sale of alcohol so it can be sold in the streets, destroying the social fabric of a Muslim society. He said that the regime authorities have shifted Dr Qasim Faktu to Haryana Gurugram jail, further muzzling the voices of resistance.

Even the social reformist Jamaat Islami was banned and forced to join sham electoral politics for mere existence and freedom of its leaders, he told. He also discussed the prolonged incarceration of Kashmiri leaders Masrat Alam Bhat, Yasin Malick, Shabbir Shah, Asiya Andrabi, Naheeda Nasreen, Fehmeeda Sofi and others under fabricated charges.

Sikandar Siddique expressed grave concerns over the plight of Kashmiri Muslims and said that he would raise the voice for Kashmiris at all forums and the Indian occupying regime would not be allowed to violate the human rights of the Kashmiri Muslims. On the occasion, PTI lawmakers Ali Mohammad Khan and Shandana Gulzar also briefed the former Danish MP on the plight of the Kashmiri youth.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2025