MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu
and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed on Tuesday detailed five
members of his cabinet to receive a federal minister at an entry point near
here on his maiden visit to the AJK capital, in a move that drew flak from
opposition and civil society activists.
While minister for school
education Mian Abdul Waheed, minister for college education Matloob Inqilabi,
minister for food Javed Iqbal Bhudanvi and minister for works Chaudhry Muhammad
Rasheed welcomed the federal minister for Kashmir affairs Birjees Tahir at
Kohala bridge, some 35 kilometres from here, after waiting for him for about an
hour along with the deputy commissioner and SSP Muzaffarabad, minister for
information Bazil Ali Naqvi received the VIP guest near Ambore tunnel, 5
kilometres from here, along with around one dozen people.
Eyewitnesses said the AJK
cabinet members garlanded the visiting minister with festoons of artificial
flowers.
Highly placed official
sources told this scribe that chief secretary Alam Din Bullo was not in
favour of sending the cabinet members to Kohala to receive the federal minster.
Instead, he had suggested
that the DC and SSP should receive the guest at Kohala and he (the CS) and
other officials would greet him at the entrance of a hotel here, where the AJK
prime minister had arranged an iftar dinner in his honour.
However, sources said,
Prime Minister Majeed did not agree with the suggestion and directed the
designated ministers to escort the federal minister from Kohala to
Muzaffarabad.
The iftar dinner was held
in the capital's only 5-star hotel and the federal minister attended it with a
sense of gratification, apparently unmindful of a ban Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif has imposed on all kinds of iftar dinners to reduce burden on national
exchequer.
The unprecedented
reception on the part of Peoples Party led AJK government however sent a shock
wave among the civil society and political activists who said it amounted to “undermining
the status of the AJK government.”
A post on this issue in
social media also triggered an insightful debate with comments pouring in not
only from the AJK based Kashmiris but also those living across the Line of
Control (LoC) and abroad.
“A simple humiliation of
already humiliated government. Even (the federal) minister himself should have
taken notice of this unusual reception,” said former Prime Minister and
opposition Muslim Conference president Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan in a text
message to this scribe.
Even the PML-N AJK chapter
president and leader of the opposition in AJK assembly Raja Farooq Haider was
not happy with this development.
The PML-N activists did not
attend federal minister's reception at Kohala.
“Azad Kashmir is back in
1950’s,” Mr Haider told this scribe, referring to an alleged practice of
1950’s when the AJK president(s) used to receive the joint secretary of federal
ministry of Kashmir affairs at Kohala.
The practice however came
to end when legendary leader K H Khurshid became the AJK president in late 50’s.
PML-N’s senior vice
president Chaudhry Tariq Farooq MLA was also aghast at what he said ‘shameful
act on the part of the AJK government.’
“The AJK government wants
to hush up its corruption and hoodwink the federal government with such acts of
puffery,” he remarked.
Interestingly some ruling
Peoples Party leaders had also erected billboards in the civil secretariat area
with welcoming slogans for the visiting federal minister.
Shaukat Javid Mir, one of
the spokesmen for Prime Minister Majeed, shrugged off criticism against the
reception and maintained that the PP government had demonstrated its “traditional
hospitality” notwithstanding difference of political ideologies.
But there were hardly any
takers of the official stance.
“AJK and Gilgit Baltistan
are 'dependencies'...there is need to redefine and restructure this
relationship (with Pakistan)... Even the chief ministers and governors in the
federating provinces have little time for visiting ministers,” said analyst M
Ismail Khan in his comment on Facebook.
Shams Rehman, a UK based
Kashmiri community leader, maintained that there was nothing wrong in showing
some courtesies but meanings changed when relationships were not equal.
The federal minister is
scheduled to meet various people and attend some briefings here on Wednesday
before returning to Islamabad the same evening… Tariq Naqash
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