MUZAFFARABAD: Rallies and seminars were held across Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Monday to mark Right to Self-Determination Day, with participants urging the United Nations to implement its January 5 resolution on Kashmir as a prerequisite for lasting peace in South Asia.
In Muzaffarabad, Pasban-i-Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (PHJK), an organisation representing post-1989 migrants from Indian-occupied Kashmir, organised a large rally attended by women, children and elderly citizens. The rally began at Burhan Wani Shaheed Chowk and marched towards the UN Observers’ Office near Domel, at the confluence of the Neelum and Jhelum rivers.
Participants carried banners and placards highlighting alleged human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir and demanding the right to self-determination. They said this right had repeatedly been promised to the Kashmiri people by the international community and India itself.
Addressing the gathering, AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar called on the United Nations to ensure the implementation of its own resolutions to resolve the Kashmir dispute. He said the January 5 resolution provided a clear roadmap for a settlement and that the Kashmiri people had been waiting for its enforcement for decades.
PHJK chairman Uzair Ahmed Ghazali said the people of Jammu and Kashmir wanted to decide their political future through a UN-supervised process, as envisaged in Security Council resolutions. He urged the international community and global human rights organisations to play a more effective role, including efforts to secure the release of political prisoners.
Participants raised slogans against Indian military presence and reiterated their resolve to continue their struggle for the right to self-determination until their demands were fulfilled.
Similar rallies were held at several district headquarters across AJK. Meanwhile, a seminar was organised at Kashmir House in Islamabad, where senior minister Mian Abdul Waheed, former presidents Sardar Yaqoob Khan and Sardar Muhammad Masood Khan, former prime ministers Raja Farooq Haider and Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, and All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) leader Altaf Ahmed Bhat were among the prominent speakers.
Separately, AJK Prime Minister Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, who was in Islamabad, attended a seminar organised by the Friends of Kashmir at the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services. He said January 5 was a reminder of the UN’s unfulfilled commitments to the Kashmiri people and urged the world body to take effective notice of the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir. He maintained that Kashmir remained a disputed territory and that decades of sacrifices by Kashmiris could not be ignored indefinitely.
Meanwhile, speakers at a conference in Islamabad also urged the international community to press India to implement UN resolutions on Kashmir. The Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), in collaboration with the Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) and the APHC, organised the conference titled “January 5: The Call for Self-Determination in Jammu and Kashmir.”
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Speaking at the event, KIIR chairman Altaf Hussain Wani said that while several UN resolutions existed on Kashmir, the UNCIP resolution of January 5, 1949, provided a clear roadmap for resolving the dispute. He said India had approached the UN claiming accession by the Maharaja, despite the ruler having fled and relinquished authority, leading the UN to decide that Kashmir’s future must be determined by its people.
Participants raised slogans against Indian military presence and reaffirmed their resolve to continue their struggle for the right to self-determination until their demands were met.https://t.co/KydWnjb1JV
— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) January 6, 2026
Former APHC convener Farooq Rehmani said India never intended to implement UN resolutions and instead complicated the process through repeated objections. He said the ceasefire divided the region and that the 1990s saw widespread human rights abuses, including the discovery of unmarked graves. He added that since August 2019, India had pursued demographic changes by issuing domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris while Kashmiri leaders remained imprisoned.
Director of the India Study Centre, Dr Khurram Abbas, said that although the UNCIP acknowledged the right of self-determination in 1949, the people of Jammu and Kashmir were still waiting to exercise this right nearly 78 years later. He said the relevance of the resolution had increased significantly after August 5, 2019.
The conference was attended by members of the think-tank community, intellectuals and a large number of students, who echoed calls for renewed international engagement on the Kashmir issue.
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