Pakistan marks 'Kashmir Day' with anti-India rallies

Pakistan’s political and military leadership is marking the country's annual Day of Solidarity with Kashmir

Pakistan Kashmir (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Pakistan’s political and military leadership on Friday marked the annual Day of Solidarity with Kashmir vowing to continue political support for those living in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and for a solution to the disputed region’s status in accordance with U.N. resolutions.

Thousands of people were expected to take part in anti-India rallies across Pakistan as well as in the portion of Kashmir under Pakistan’s control. Prime Minister Imran Khan was set to deliver a speech later Friday in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir.

Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmiri insurgents in India’s portion of the Himalayan region. Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support.

Shibli Faraz, Pakistan’s information minister, told The Associated Press that “The onus is on India to create an enabling environment by rescinding its illegal and unilateral actions,” referring to India’s revoking of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in August 2019.

In southwest Pakistan, at least 16 people were wounded when an unknown assailant threw a hand grenade at people standing along a road minutes after a pro-Kashmir rally passed through the area, local police chief Wazir Ali Marri said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in Sibi district in Baluchistan province. The restive province has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists demanding a greater share of local natural gas and mineral resources.

In Kashmir, Pakistan has long pushed for the right to self-determination under a U.N. resolution passed in 1948, which called for a referendum on whether Kashmiris wanted to merge with Pakistan or India.

The future of Muslim-majority Kashmir was left unresolved at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was divided into predominantly Hindu India and mainly Muslim Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. In 2019, a car bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed 40 Indian soldiers and brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war.

India has an estimated 700,000 soldiers in its part of Kashmir, fighting nearly a dozen rebel groups since 1989. In many areas, the region has the feel of an occupied country, with soldiers in full combat gear patrolling streets and frisking civilians. More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict.

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Associated Press writer Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan contributed to this report.