RAWALPINDI: General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) visited Azad Kashmir (AK) Regimental Centre Mansar Camp Wednesday.

According to an ISPR statement, COAS laid floral wreath at Yadgar-e-Shuhada and offered Fateha. COAS formally installed Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali, Commander Quetta Corps as Colonel Commandant of AK Regiment. Addressing the participants, COAS praised the Azad Kashmir Regiment for its glorious history, professional excellence, outstanding operational performance and war worthiness.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has strongly condemned the continuing spree of extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris in staged encounters and so-called cordon and search operations by Indian troops in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, according to a PID statement today.

Foreign Office Spokesperson, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, in the statement said at least 18 innocent Kashmiris have been martyred with impunity by Indian occupation forces in the last one month. While the fundamental freedoms of Kashmiris remain suspended, the Indian occupation forces have further intensified their repression in IIOJK in the past weeks, he said.

The Spokesperson said the deteriorating security and human rights situation in the occupied territory is a matter of grave concern for the international community. Amidst all this, the visit by Indian ministers to the occupied territory is another Indian ploy to divert attention from India’s state-sponsored terrorism and to project a false sense of normalcy in IIOJK.

He said no amount of lies, deceit and publicity stunts by the RSS-BJP votaries in the name of fake normalcy and development, can address the total alienation of the Kashmiris in IIOJK. The spokesperson said India must realize that the path to sustainable peace and development in the region is through permanent resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people.