Steps are being taken to hold local bodies elections in mid of May next year: Prime Minister AJK

ISLAMABAD (PID AJK) The Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi has said that steps are being taken to hold local bodies elections in mid of May next year to transfer powers at grass root level to address the problems of the people at local level and added that the Prime Minister Imran Khan has assured full cooperation for holding the local body elections in Azad Kashmir.

He expressed these views while talking to Hurriyat leaders, journalists and various public delegations at Jammu and Kashmir House here on Friday.

He said the government is pursuing a policy of austerity and reducing its expenditure and even the expenditure of the Prime Minister’s House which was in the millions of rupees on a daily basis, has been reduced to a few thousand.
The Prime Minister said that previous governments kept promising local body elections but could not put it into practice. The PTI government will fulfill every promise made to the people. He said work has been started for holding local body elections which will be held in May next year.

The Prime Minister assured that the PTI government would channelize all its resources to solve the long standing problems of the people of the state as per the vision of the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan. He said that no compromise would be made on the supremacy of merit and transparent distribution of development funds in the state and corruption would not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Referring to the situation of occupied Kashmir he said Indian has intensified the reign of terror in occupied Kashmir to suppress the freedom movement and regretted over the continued silence of the international comminity over the plight of the Kashmiri people of occupied Kashmir who have been subjected worst kind of atrocities at the hands of Indian occupations forces. The Prime Minister said that liberation of occupied Kashmir is the priority of the government and all resources would be channelized to achieve this objective.

Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi strongly condemned the martyrdom of three innocent youths in a fake in-counter in occupied Kashmir a day ago by Indian occupying forces and added that three more Kashmiri youths were killed in Srinagar by the brute Indian in Haiderpur. He said Indian has started mass genocide of Kashmiri people to crush the freedom movement launched by the Kashmiri people for attaining their fundamental right to self determination.

He urged international community to play their role in stopping the genocide of Kashmiri and impose economic sanctions against India for killing in custody, crackdown and enforced disappearances and added that the government of Azad Kashmir will raise the voice of the people of occupied Kashmir at international level.