News
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Protest in AJK against improving trade with IndiaMUZAFFARABAD: Hundreds in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Friday, demonstrated against the government’s decision to take steps to improve trade with archrival India.
Pakistan’s cabinet last month said it approved a proposal giving India the status of “most favoured nation” in a move towards normalising trade relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Members of banned groups including Jamaatud Dawa, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, and Jamaat-e-Islami gathered in the main square in Muzaffarabad, the capital of AJK.
Protesters shouted slogans against the Pakistani government and were joined by supporters of the main opposition party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a reporter said.
“We will never accept this decision,” local chief of Jamaatud Dawa, Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi told the gathering.
His organisation is blacklisted as a terror group by the United Nations and considered a front for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba that Washington and New Delhi blamed for the killings of 166 people on November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The carnage derailed a peace process between India and Pakistan, which has only this year spluttered back into life. Protesters later blocked the main road passing through Muzaffarabad city centre by setting tyres on fire.
Relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, have been plagued by border and resource disputes, and accusations of Pakistani terrorist activity against India. A 20-year freedom struggle in Indian-held Kashmir has left tens of thousands dead. afp
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk