Exiled Kashmiri leader asks Pakistan to stop shifting COVID-19 patients to PoK

Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, exiled chairman of the United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP), has strongly condemned Pakistan's move to shifting coronavirus affected people from Punjab to Mirpur district and other parts of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Bern [Switzerland] (ANI) Mar 22: Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, exiled chairman of the United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP), has strongly condemned Pakistan's move to shifting coronavirus affected people from Punjab to Mirpur district and other parts of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). He told ANI: "Pakistan must stop deliberately spreading coronavirus in PoK to get international aid. The Pakistani establishment is deliberately spreading the coronavirus to get international aid and is also trying to use the territory of Kashmir to house their sick, which is a diabolical move."

He added: "It's heartening to note that the people of Mirpur are aware and resisting. Pakistani security personnel forced locals to evacuate their properties (plazas) and Mohi-Ud-Din teaching hospital to convert them into quarantine centres. Pakistani secret agencies are approaching and forcing locals to stop opposing and cooperate, otherwise be ready to face the consequences". Kashmiri said that such actions are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.

"Pakistan is a huge country. It has a lot of free areas, too many free plazas and hospitals, which can be converted into quarantine centres. Then why she is shifting corona affected people to our areas? It is an open secret that Pakistan has always used our areas for its nefarious designs and gains. It launched operation Gulmarg, Operation Tupac and Operation Gibraltar to spread the virus of extremism, terrorism, and religious hatred, which resulted forced division and we lost one whole generation," said the PoK leader. Kashmiri said that Pakistan now wants to spread the coronavirus in our areas to get international aid.

Over the last 73 years, apart from a total lack of development and basic political rights, the people of PoK have suffered from the lack of health facilities, sanitation and hygienic conditions in hospitals. All this is providing fertile ground for diseases and infections, he said. Sardar Shaukat Kashmiri further said that Pakistan has neglected our area's development; military controls health system in the name of Combined Military Hospitals (CMH). Local people and local medical staff have no say.

"We are the most deprived and marginalised people. There is not a single credible laboratory in PoK for miner treatment or get a blood and urine test done. Our people on their own are forced to travel hundreds of kilometers to go to Rawalpindi and Islamabad to get medical help and treatment," said Shaukat. He said that in such poor health conditions and lack of basic health facilities in PoK we cannot accept such inhuman actions of Pakistan.

"We urge upon the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations (UN) and the international community to intervene and ask Pakistan to stop sending corona affected people to disputed areas of PoK which can take the life of millions of people in the region," he said. (ANI)

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