Flopped even after millions spent: Rival Kashmir group JKNIA

NEW DELHI: Even as the ‘ Million March’ on Kashmir fizzled out last Sunday, a counter-demonstration in the same city was held by the Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA) – a UK-based alliance of Kashmiri Nationalist parties – in front of the Indian and Pakistani High Commissions. JKNIA held token hunger strikes outside the missions last Saturday with the message of "give peace a chance".

It submitted memoranda addressed to PMs of India and Pakistan, government sources told ET from London. JKNIA is an umbrella alliance of Kashmiri political parties and civil society organisations based in UK which aims to support non-violent people resistance movement in J&K by campaigning for the right of self-determination to reunify and establish ‘an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir’.

The group had opposed the ‘Million March’ on October 26 from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street in London led by Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry with backing of Pakistani political parties. Dr Shabir Choudhry, spokesperson for the Kashmir National Party and director of the Institute of Kashmir Affairs and a member of JKNIA, told ET from London that the organisers of the Million March spent huge amounts to try and get people to attend.

"I had a phone call from an old friend in Halifax (west Yorkshire, England) who said that after the Friday prayer free coaches and free food would be provided for volunteers who attend the march," claimed Choudhury.