Social media backs India on Kashmir, Pak told to vacate PoK

Washington, Oct 1: Social media voices have backed India after Pakistan's Prime Minister raised the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly even as a former top Pakistani diplomat tweeted that Nawaz Sharif's speech "plays well at home" but is "not taken seriously by the rest of the world".

Reacting to Sharif's speech, India had hit back asking Pakistan to vacate Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and charged that Islamabad is the prime sponsor of terrorism. "We urge early vacation of Pak occupied Kashmir," Vikas Swarup, spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry said in a series of tweets after Sharif raised the issue of Kashmir in at the UN General Assembly.

These tweets were soon trending on Twitter. "Pak Prime Minister gets foreign occupation right, occupier wrong," Swarup tweeted after Sharif in his four-point proposal said that steps be taken to demilitarise Kashmir.

Twitter users were quick to support India while describing Pakistan as a hub of terrorism, even as its own former diplomat observed that Sharif's speech at the UN General Assembly, though welcomed at home, has furthered hardened India's position.

"Pakistan has gained nothing out of it and globally there are few takers for its Islamabad's allegations against New Delhi," tweeted Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US. "Prime Minister Sharif's UN General Assembly speech plays well at home, doesn't move India," he said.

"I'm old enough to recall UN speeches that were admired by domestic audiences but were not taken seriously by rest of the world," he said in another tweet.

"Pakistan a terrorist, failed state exporter of Jihadist taking Kashmir, India's blunder is the survival of terrorist state of Pakistan," one T S Chandrashekar wrote on Twitter. "India using right to reply at UNGA have asked Pakistan for early vacation of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir," tweeted Debasis Dash.

"Massive protests erupt in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as people demand freedom from Pakistan, raise pro-India slogans," wrote Pawan Durani.

And while Sharif was addressing the UN General Assembly, a number of Baloch nationalists and supporters of Muttahida Quami Movement held protest rallies against alleged human rights violations in Pakistan.

PTI