Sardar Abdul Qayyum © Gulf News |
Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, who heads Pakistan's Kashmir committee, led a high level delegation to Khartoum which saw a lively debate on the issue of India's entry into the OIC.
"Qatar suggested that India be made a member of OIC, but it was shot down. There was complete consensus among the member nations that if we give India entry on the basis that it has a Muslim population, then by that same criteria Russia and the U.S. and Israel should also be made member countries. They too have Muslim populations. But like India they do not qualify as an Islamic nation," Qayyum said.
The Kashmiri leader pointed out that similar suggestions had been made at previous OIC meets, but they had met much the same fate.
"Consequently, after heated debate, in which the issue of the atrocities committed against the Muslims of Gujarat and the continuing atrocities against the Muslims of Kashmir was raised by various countries it was agreed that the suggestion should be withdrawn," Qayyum said.
The OIC strongly reaffirmed support for the people of Jammu and Kashmir while condemning India's recent moves to increase tension in the region. However, instead of sending a 'fact-finding mission' as reported by some agencies, the body took up Qayyum's suggestion that it send a goodwill mission to India.
"Nobody wants confrontation, nobody wants a conflict with India. Which is why I suggested we send a goodwill mission from the OIC. After all, we are not trying India in a court of law. We would rather that countries that are friendly to India, within the OIC, consider how to deal with India in the most constructive way possible."
Qayyum, who has recently returned to Pakistan from an extensive tour of the U.S., UK and Europe where he has interacted with a number of think tanks, believes the only way forward for India and Pakistan, trapped in the old mindsets on Kashmir, is dialogue.
In that context, he would like the OIC to make it clear that terrorism had no place in the lexicon of peace.
"Terrorism is something that is opposed to the basic tenets of Islam, and it's time the OIC projects this. There is a clear injunction in the holy Quran against it. There must be no doubt or confusion in anybody's mind that terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians is a contravention of Islam."
Qayyum, who took up the gun against the Indian government as a young man, has since become the strongest proponent of a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue, which has bedevilled relations between India and Pakistan for the last 50 years. The "freedom movement" has to a great extent been taken over by militants who target civilians. Qayyum says this must stop. "The people of Kashmir have suffered enough, incidents like the attack in Kaluchak are wrong, this is terrorism."
He took part in talks with two moderates from the All-Party Hurriyet Conference, Abdul Ghani Lone and the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Dubai in April, in a bid to seek a breakthrough.
Lone was assassinated at a rally in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Qayyum believes Lone's killers had links to the state's Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah. "They were shouting slogans like 'Jeeve, Jeeve Pakistan' and then 'Al Qaida Zindabad' and 'Taliban Zindabad'. No Pakistani, no Kashmiri would do that."
Asked if he was saying there were no Al Qaida in Kashmir, he said, "I challenge anyone to find even one Al Qaida man in Kashmir. I know every village, every resident. It's just not possible."
