THIS refers to L A. Rehman`s article `Should we rethink Kashmir?` (Sept 29).

What the distinguished writer, best known for his work in connection with human rights, has said in the article should actually be l
However, in our country, our leaders` actions, as also of their followers, are hardly based on rational thinking. Instead, blinded by our prejudices, excessive emotionalism and an overdose of what we misconstrue as patriotism, we keep crying for the moon while our leaders` actions also have a point-scoring element. Otherwise how much sympathy our leaders have for Kashmiris or even for Pakistanis is clearly demonstrated by their treatment of the people, a growing proportion of whom keeps going below the poverty line while the fortunes of our leaders multiply.

Coming back to Kashmir, well, as the writer says, the international community is no longer interested in the issue which it considers to be a bilateral one between Pakistan and India, to which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had also agreed as a price for securingthe release ofthousands ofour soldiers taken prisoner by India in 1971.It is said that people adopt the most logical course afterthey have exhausted allother options. Perhaps, working on this principle, the Musharraf government had adopted an approach on Kashmir which yielded good results and perhaps real solution lies in that direction.

However, being suicidal by nature as proved by his two trimmed terms, and perhaps not having exhausted his `all other options` yet, Nawaz Sharif keeps up the rhetoric, which only brings increasing punishment to the people he and others seem to believe he is helping.

Riazul Hakeem Karachi