MUZAFFARABAD: People of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) demanded on Thursday immediate withdrawal of Indian forces from held Kashmir and grant of right to self-determination to residents of the divided Himalayan region in accordance with the United Nations resolutions.

The demand was made at rallies, public meetings, seminars and other functions held across the territory to condemn invasion of Jammu and Kashmir by India on Oct 27, 1947 on the pretext of a controversial `instrument of accession`.

BiggatheringswereheldinMuzaffarabad, separately under the aegis of Kashmir Liberation Cell, a state-run institution, to highlight the Kashmir issue, and the United Jihad Council (UJC), a conglomerate of around a dozen Kashmiri groups fighting India`s illegal rule in the disputed region.

The official programme was addressedamong others by AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Hafeezur Rehman, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs Chaudhry Barjees Tahir, and leaders and representatives of almost all political and religious parties.

The UJC event was addressed among others by its chairman Syed Salahuddin.

Speakers at all the rallies recalled that India had unlawfully sent its troops to Kashmir and had since unleashed a reign of terror to quell the quest of people for freedom. They asked the international community to intervene in the situation for durable peace before the accelerated tensions turned into war.

The AJK premier said the people who considered Kashmir as an economic, human rights or law and order problem were mistaken. `It is the issue of inalienable right to self-determination of Kashmiris, which India can no longer deny to them no matter how brutish are the measures that it adopts.