Lahore: Thousands of people from the Punjab capital and surrounding areas joined the Azadi Kashmir March of the Jamaat e Islami, from Nasir Bagh to Wagha to express their solidarity with the valiant Kashmiris struggling for their right of self-determination. Addressing the spirited crowd at the terminating point, the Ameer, JIP, Senator Sirajul Haq said that the liberation of Kashmir was not an economic, regional or ethnic issue, it was an ideological war and the Pakistanis would fight till the last drop of their blood. He said that India had thrust three wars on Pakistan and had been carrying out the genocide of the Kashmiris for the last seventy years but the international forums were blind to that.
Jamaat al Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed joined the Azadi march at its starting point.
JI Punjab chief Mian Maqsood Ahmed, prominent Kashmir leader Ghulam Muhammad Safi and Jamaat al Dawa’s Qari Muhammad Yaqub Sheikh and Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, also addressed the gathering. Sirajul Haq said that Pakistan was a nuclear power and the Pakistanis were a brave nation. He said India should realize that the Pakistanis had risen in support of the Kashmiris and they would make India to pay for all her excesses in Held Kashmir and India would have to pull out from the valley very soon.
The JI chief said that the Kashmiris were burying their martyrs in the Pakistani flags but the Pakistani rulers were still keen for friendship and trade with India. He also demanded that a Relief Fund be set up for the treatment of hundreds of Kashmiris wounded by the firing of occupation forces. Sirajul Haq announced that August 15, the independence day of India would be observed as Black Day throughout Pakistan. On that day, a march would be arranged from Muzaffarabad to Chikothi and would declare that they did not accept the Line of Control and would pull it down in any case. Kashmiri leader Ghulam Muhammad Safi, in his address, thanked the Pakistani nation and the JI chief Sirajul Haq for holding the Kashmir Azadi march. He said this march was clear message for the Pakistani and Indian rulers that the talks of friendship was not acceptable in any case.