India promoting Hinduism under garb of secularism: AJK president.

ISLAMABAD -- Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Saturday said after grudgingly accepting the independence of Pakistan, India adopted a secular doctrine.

This concept, he said, was an insincere attempt as this was nothing but Hinduism mascaraed as secularism.

He was speaking at two separate web-conferences organised by the Institute of Policy Studies on 'India: past, present and future: perceptions of the Muslim World', and by the Pakistan High Commission in UK on 'Seeking justice for Kashmiri victims of sexual violence and physical torture and widows'.

Speaking at the IPS session, Mr Khan said Hindu fascists romanticise an imaginary state of Akhand Bharat that they claim to have existed before the arrival of Muslim rulers in the subcontinent.

This notion, he said, is not only unsubstantiated by history but is also counter-intuitive, says a press release.

Referring to the faux secularism adopted by India, the AJK president said over decades this glue of secularism had come off and the real face of India's political masters been exposed.

'Not long after independence, on October 27, 1947, India began working on its imperialistic agenda, and invaded the Jammu and Kashmir State. Driven by its Hindu-extremist policy, India has carried on with this agenda over the years,' he said.

Mr Khan said lawmakers and the leadership of BJP, the RSS and their affiliates have publicly declared that they would do away with Muslims from within India.

This, he said, has caught the attention of Hindu zealots from across India which has consequently impacted the larger political landscape of India.

This BJP-RSS nexus has waged three wars in the region; one against its minorities inside its own borders, the second against Kashmiris in the occupied territory of Kashmir and the third one against all its neighbouring countries.

Considering Pakistan as the enemy number one, they have threatened to wipe off Pakistan from the face of the earth by the use of nuclear weapons, he maintained.

Mr Khan said India's ambition of becoming a colonial and imperial power in the region has led it to using the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh for sabotaging the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It has also formed a four-member alliance comprising India, US, Japan and Australia to oppose the BRI and, especially, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

'India is the biggest barrier for progress in the region...