ISLAMABAD: Acknowledging the measures taken by Pakistan after India’s illegal actions of August 5, senior leader of All Pakistan Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Syed Mushtaq Gilani said now the ugly face of India and its so-called claim of being a secular state had fully been exposed before the world.

Had Pakistan not adopted a proactive approach to effectively highlighting the lingering issue of Kashmir after the August 5 actions, he said, the world would have never realized the sinister designs of India in IIOJK.

“Now, it is the prime responsibility of the international community, especially the influential countries, to come forward and play their due role in giving the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir their legitimate right of self-determination, which has been denied since 1947,” he said in an interview with APP.

In violation of Indian sub-continent’s partition formula, he said, India illegally held the Muslim majority area of Kashmir and let a reign of terror there to prolong its occupation despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council has passed over a dozen of resolutions in favour of people of Kashmir.

On February 5, Mushtaq Gilani said that Pakistanis and Kashmiris residing in all parts of the world would express complete solidarity with the people of IIOJK, reminding the international human rights ‘champions’ of their lawful and moral obligation of ensuring the right to self-determination to Kashmiris.

He said India wanted to hold the occupied territory on permanent basis by silencing the indigenous freedom movement of Kashmiris, using all possible unfair and unlawful means.

He said people of IIOJK were facing worst ever suppression and atrocities at the hands of occupational forces and Modi-led fascist government, which stripped the held territory of its special status, on August 5, 2019, by revoking Articles 370 and 35-A to change its demographic apartheid.

Terming Pakistan and Kashmir ‘two hearts and one soul,’ the APCH leader said in principle IIOJK was the part of Pakistan as the two-nation theory envisioned and got implemented by founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

The APHC leader paid tribute to the Quaid for his ‘political wisdom’ and ‘farsightedness’ in securing a separate homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.

“He (Quaid) had the vision that in a united Hindustan, Muslims can never progress. Now, Muslims residing in India have this realization,” he said.

He thanked Pakistan for extending all possible political, diplomatic and morale support to the people of occupied Kashmir in getting their inalienable right of self-determination.