Kashmir must cement India-Pakistan friendship: Mehbooba

Srinagar – Jammu and Kashmir “should become the bridge for friendship between India and Pakistan and not their battlefield”, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti said Monday.

At a peace rally here, Mehbooba Mufti told reporters: “This rally is for peace. For one and a half months there have been tensions on the (Kashmir) border due to shelling and firing.

“Whenever such incidents occur, it is the people of Kashmir who get killed on both two sides of the border.

“The purpose of the rally is that Kashmir should become the bridge for friendship between India and Pakistan and not their battlefield,” she said.

The largely attended PDP rally started from the party’s headquarters in Civil Lines and reached the Lal Chowk city centre in the afternoon.

It was led by Mehbooba Mufti and senior leaders Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, Tariq Hamid Karra and Muhammad Dilawar Mir among others.

She said the large attendance at the rally was a message for Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh of India and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan that the people of Kashmir want a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir problem.

Banners at the rally read: “Jo Jung Ka Yaar Hai, Gadaar Hai, Gadaar Hai! (The friends of war are the traitors).”