By DPA
Islamabad : More than 200 Kashmiri protestors demanding self-determination for their homeland marched on the Indian embassy here Tuesday as Pakistan observed a national holiday highlighting the region’s plight.
The men holding placards demanding freedom and chanting pro-democracy slogans marched into the capital’s heavily guarded diplomatic quarter and held a brief protest outside the Indian mission.
Escorting the protestors were Pakistani police who searched them for weapons as they entered the diplomatic enclave but otherwise did not interfere with the annual Kashmir Solidarity Day march.
“We are missing more than 10,000 people … We’ve had 93,000 dead in the past 20 years,” said Syed Yousuf Naseem, leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a Kashmiri umbrella organisation.
“There will be no peace in this region without a resolution to the Kashmiri issue,” he said.
Pakistan and India have been fighting over Kashmir since the countries’ partition in 1947. Islamabad supports armed Muslim separatists in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.
However, there has been little international interest in Kashmir in recent years, with international media attention in the past year focusing squarely on Pakistan’s domestic political crisis and Islamic militancy.