JI chief, GB governor, AJK President to be added to PM's committee on occupied Kashmir
August 09, 2019
ISLAMABAD: The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief, Gilgit-Baltistan governor, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) president would be added to Prime Minister Imran Khan's seven-member committee to recommend responses to developments in occupied Kashmir, a notification from the PM Office said.
Senator Sirajul Haq, the JI leader, would be extended a formal invitation to join the committee, the notification added, further noting that AJK President Sardar Masood Khan, GB Governor Raja Jalal Hussain Maqpoon, as well as Federal Law Minister Farogh Naseem, would be included in the special team.
The notification added that the seven-member committee would analyse India's latest move — to abolish Article 370 and 35A, thereby, scrapping occupied Kashmir's special status — and put forth recommendations.
In addition, Tuesday's notification had said the committee would recommend legal, political, and diplomatic responses to developments in the occupied Kashmir.
Tuesday's notification further noted that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Attorney-General of Pakistan Anwar Mansoor Khan, Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood, and the PM's special envoy, Ahmed Bilal Sufi, as well as the directors-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Operations, and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) were among the committee's members.
Earlier, during a joint Parliament session to discuss the deteriorating situation in the Muslim-majority Himalayan region, former Senate chairperson Raza Rabbani had rejected the PM's committee on the occupied Kashmir.
Rabbani had stressed that none of the elected representatives was part of PM Imran's Kashmir committee and, therefore, it was not acceptable. It should, instead, comprise members of the Opposition in both houses of the Parliament and folks from the incumbent government.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, the chairperson of the Senate's committee on foreign affairs and a member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had supported Rabbani's demand.
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