Former President Asif Ali Zardari has condoled the death of former president and prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Muhammad Abdul Qayum in Islamabad on Friday. "In a career that spanned more than six decades Sardar Qayum fought for the Kashmir cause on multiple fronts ranging from battle field to politics to diplomacy with tenacity and persistence that is rivalled by few", the former President said in a condolence message today.
In the course of a long and tumultuous political struggle Sardar Qayum may have attracted severed criticism but even his detractors cannot accuse him of abandoning the cause of the people of Kashmir," he said. "While Sardar Qayum resolutely stood by and fought for the cause of indigenous struggle of the Kashmiris for their rights he also warned against external elements creeping into it in the name of jihad. It is a measure of his courage that he gave this warning when the military dictator had privatized jihad for his political survival. Indeed Sardar Qayum was among the first and few to speak up against the privatization of jihad industry. May Allah rest his soul in eternal peace and grant patience to the members of bereave family to bear he loss with fortitude, the former President prayed.-PR