Pak PM Sharif’s party sweeps PoK elections

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday said Kashmir will be part of Pakistan one day.

Backing the Kashmiris’ struggle in Kashmir against India, Mr Sharif said the independence movement cannot be suppressed by using brute force.

“A day will come when Kashmir will accede to Pakistan. Pakistan will not abandon Kashmiris struggle to right to self-determination,” he said while addressing a rally in Muzaffarabad.

Mr Sharif said the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir had rejected negative politics by giving thumping majority to the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in Legislative Assembly elections held on Thursday.

The Prime Minister said success in politics can only be derived through serving instead of staging sit-ins. He said PML-N will bring a revolution of development in PoK. He announced there will be a network of roads, highways, motorways, and hospitals in PoK.

The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)’s victory in the local elections in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, according to unofficial results on Friday, has given Mr Sharif a boost after months of pressure from his opponents.

Mr Sharif has faced criticism since documents released as past of the Panama Papers data leak showed his children owned several off-shore companies and used them to buy properties in London. He denies wrongdoing, as do his children.

The Pakistan Muslim League won 31 seats in the region’s 41-seat assembly in Thursday’s vote, said Tariq Mahmood Butt, spokesperson for PoK election commission.

“This win is proof that our voters have completely rejected our opponents’ incessant diatribe against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,” said the party’s regional chief, Raja Farooq Haider.

“It is not merely a win. It is a landslide,” Mr Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, an increasingly influential member of her father’s party, said on her Twitter page.

The win by Mr Sharif’s party in the region will not have any direct bearing on Pakistan’s stand on the Kashmir or on its dealings with India.

Later, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership on Friday decided to approach the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission to Kashmir after the recent violence.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Security Committee chaired by Mr Sharif here, said an official statement.

The meeting demanded ban on the use of pellet guns by the Indian troops in the Valley for dispersing people exercising their right to protest.

It unanimously called upon the international community to condemn the blatant human rights violations and play their role in ensuring the realisation of human rights of the Kashmiri people through fulfilling its commitments towards the people of Jammu and Kashmir under the UNSC resolutions.

The meeting unanimously expressed grave concern over the deteriorating situation in Kashmir in the wake of Burhanuddin Muzaffar Wani’s death in the Valley. While reiterating his condemnation over the “continuous Indian oppression,” Prime Minister Sharif said “brutal use of force was a blatant violation of fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people which no civilised society permits.”

He said the only plausible solution of the Kashmir issue would be the early implementation of UNSC resolution — a fair and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices.

The meeting reaffirmed its resolve against elimination of terrorism and extremism from the motherland.

The meeting appreciated the role of military and civil intelligence agencies against the nefarious designs of the international agencies and hostile countries.