Thread by @JanAli1976

Thread
Kashmir Pemier League: How business mafia has captured Kashmir cause
Some influential Pakistani & Kashmiri elements who have been making profits out of the blood of Kashmiri people have now solicited services of the Kashmir Premier League (KPL) to enhance their intakes.

For decades these elements have built fortunes out of Kashmir Valley’s blinded children, its sighing and groaning mothers, its devastated widows and orphans and its tortured men, old and young, who go around hiding blood marks on their bodies hidden under their garments.

As elsewhere in the corporate world, this business has also evolved over time, identifying new opportunities along the way and creating relevant tools to exploit them. The establishment of the Kashmir Premier League in 2021 was one such tool.

Given the popularity of cricket in this region, the idea was initially floated as a way of strengthening the so-called Kashmir cause.

The President of KPL, Arif Malik, in a letter written to then AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, demanded exclusive rights to hold KPL leagues for 13 years

,saying that the favour being asked for was in return for the massive investments the KPL had done all over the world to promote the Kashmir cause.

Ironically, PM Haider comes across as the only person who knew where and how much had Arif Malik spent to advance the Kashmir cause internationally. He awarded him the 13-year contract without raising an eyebrow.

Thus was outsourced cricket as well as the Kashmir cause to a private company. The first KPL tournament was held in August 2021, but observers say there was everything on display in the exciting contests except the Kashmir cause.

Various sponsors and franchises claim to have poured in large amounts of money to ensure success of the event. But there can’t be any audits of their accounts because the money was spent for the Kashmir cause.

Business and corruption have traditionally been the wherewithal of projects floated in the name of Kashmir cause.

What is happening now has happened in the past exactly in the same manner, i.e., all benefits of a venture accruing to the managers and their facilitators.

In the meantime, fresh elections were held in AJK, and the PML-N government was replaced by a PTI government, led by Abdul Qayum Niazi, the new PM. He too could not resist the urge to back KPL.

In February 2022, his government wrote a letter to Ramiz Rajathe head of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), requesting a no-objection certificate (NoC) to KPL’s Season-2 event, arguing that its first season had been a huge “diplomatic victory”.There were no details or explanations.

The recent leaking of this letter has created many questions in the minds of the people, such as: did the first season of the league lead any country of the world to call on India for a resolution of the Kashmir issue? Did India admit that its Kashmir policy was wrong?

Did India stop its brutalities in Kashmir? Did India cancel over 4.2 million Kashmir domiciles it has issued to non-Kashmiri Indian citizens? Did India agree to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir?

Did the Kashmiri refugees living in 13 slums across AJK get their own houses?
If none of this happened, then the diplomatic victory PM Niazi mentioned in his letter remains a top secret for now.

What is clear however is the fact that this letter was written at a time when the franchises documented and conveyed to the AJK President some serious corruption charges against the KPL organisers.

With the passage of time, the KPL organisers realized that their profits could multiply if they include India in their business.

In May, Arif Malik announced that he will include Verat Kohli, the former captain of Indian cricket team, in KPL and invite him to attend KPL’s Season-II as a chief guest.

Verat Kohli is the same person who publicly expressed solidarity with India`s paramilitary force Central Reserve Paramilitary Force (CRPF) by making his team wear military caps during a match with Australia in Ranchi soon after the Pulwama attacks.

CRPF, by the way, is the same force that fired 1.6 million pallets at the Kashmiri people during the first 34 days after the killing of Burhan Wani.

At least 14 Kashmiris were killed and more than 8,000 were wounded during that period, and over 1,000 of them, including women and children, lost one or both eyes.

Going a step further, Arif Malik told a private TV channel in Pakistan that if the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) plans a KPL-style league in Srinagar (Indian-occupied Kashmir), the KPL will back it.

“Our aim is to promote cricket,” he told the channel. “We`ve no issues if BCCI holds a league in Srinagar. We are ready to help & share our expertise with them.”
Yet, none of the rulers or leaders from AJK or Pakistan have so far raised any questions over Arif Malik’s proposals,

including during the Season-II inaugural ceremony held in Islamabad a day after Mr Malik’s TV statement.
AJK PM Tanveer Ilyas had also attended the inaugral ceremony.

This in itself is evidence that these people can ignore Indian atrocities in Kashmir for the sake of money.
Commenting on the situation, a Kashmiri youth in Srinagar,

Mohammad Arif Wani, said it seemed that the governments of Pakistan and AJK have “outsourced the Kashmir cause to a private company, and this company will now decide what is in the best interest of the Kashmiri people.

Another youth commented that sacrifices made by the people of Kashmir to win freedom “count for nothing any more

. They will now send a message of peace to the world by playidng cricket on the graves of the Kashmiri martyrs and thereby justify Indian occupation of Kashmir. It is the money that matters, not the martyrs.”

@CMShehbaz @OfficialDGISPR
@RPAPPP
@BBhuttoZardari
@SMQureshiPTI
@MaryamNSHari
@sherryrehman
@ShireenMazari1
@ShkhRasheed
@shiblifaraz
@SenatePakistan
@SaifullahNyazee
@senatorhidayat
@RAMOZr
@iramizraja
@TheRealPCB_Live
#CC #Pakistan
#criicket #Kashmir

kashmirwatch.com/kashmir-premie…

unroll @threadreaderapp