MIRPUR (AJK):Jammu and Kashmir National Front (JKNF) Senior vice chairman and prominent APHC leader Altaf Hussain Wani Friday extended his heartfelt felicitations to the people and the government of Pakistan on their Independence Day.

In a statement on the eve of Independence Day, Wani said, “The struggling people of Jammu and Kashmir owe a debt of gratitude to the people as well as the government of Pakistan for their all out moral, political and diplomatic support to our just and legitimate struggle for the right to self-determination.”

Conveying his best wishes for peace, strength, stability, progress and prosperity of Pakistan, the National Front leader said a strong and stable Pakistan was guarantor for the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

He expressed the optimism that the incumbent government would leave no stone unturned to help struggling people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir to seek their internationally recognized right, the right to self-determination for which they had offered unprecedented sacrifices.

Terming Kashmir issue as an unfinished agenda of the partition of the Indian subcontinent, Wani said the dream of a vibrant, stable and prosperous Pakistan would remain elusive unless Kashmir was freed from the Indian bondage.

Meanwhile, National Front spokesperson Shafiq-ur-Rehman urged the people to observe August 15, India’s Independence Day, as Black Day, to protest against India’s forcible occupation of Kashmir.

Terming India as usurper, he said the country that had deprived millions of Kashmiris from their fundamental rights and snatched their freedom by occupying their motherland had no justification, whatsoever, to observe Independence Day.

He said forced annexation of the occupied Jammu and Kashmir last year by the Modi’s fascist regime had yet again underlined India’s neo-colonialism, authoritarian and pro-fascist inclinations.