A large protest demonstration was held outside the Indian Embassy in Washington on the call of Friends of Kashmir, where members of the Pakistani, Kashmiri, and Sikh communities denounced Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a terrorist and condemned India’s continued human rights violations in Kashmir and against minorities across the country.
The protest, led by Friends of Kashmir Chairperson Ghazala Habib, drew participation from overseas Pakistani and Kashmiri organizations, as well as key leaders from the Khalistan movement. Demonstrators carried placards and banners with slogans such as “Modi is a terrorist,” “Modi’s Pahalgam drama exposed,” “Freedom for Kashmir,” and “Khalistan Zindabad.”
Speakers at the event—including Ghazala Habib, Sikh for Justice leader Balwinder Singh Chatha, Kashmiri community leader Muhammad Zubair Khan, Dr. Asher Hussain, Mazhar Chughtai, and Zahida Khan—accused the Indian government of orchestrating false flag operations to malign the Kashmiri freedom movement and mislead the international community.
They referred to the recent incident in Pahalgam as a fabricated terrorist attack by Indian intelligence agencies timed with the visit of U.S. Vice President JD Vance to India, drawing parallels to the March 2000 Chittisinghpura massacre, when 35 Sikhs were killed to coincide with President Clinton’s visit. “The world now knows who benefited from the Pahalgam attack. It was another Modi-directed drama, aimed at labeling the Kashmiri struggle as terrorism and influencing U.S. foreign policy,” the speakers asserted.
They pointed out the implausibility of such an attack occurring in a heavily fortified region located 400 kilometers from the Line of Control, and raised questions over the suspiciously swift registration of an FIR within 10 minutes of the incident. “Such rapid legal action and the disappearance of the attackers indicate the entire episode was staged,” they added.
The speakers also condemned India’s water aggression against Pakistan following the Pahalgam incident and rejected Indian accusations. “Pakistan had no involvement in the attack and is not a beneficiary. In fact, Pakistan has offered full cooperation for an independent investigation,” they said.
They further accused the Modi regime of trying to defame the legitimate freedom movement in Kashmir by linking it to terrorism and called out India’s Hindutva-driven state policies for promoting terrorism in Canada, the UK, the U.S., and Pakistan. “There is mounting evidence before the world that India is actively exporting terrorism while suppressing minorities at home,” they stated.
Calling on the global community to break its silence, the speakers said, “More than seven decades have passed since India illegally occupied large parts of Jammu and Kashmir. It is time the international community acted to end India’s brutal occupation and ensure the Kashmiri people are granted their UN-mandated right to self-determination.”
The protest concluded with a strong demand that the United States and other democratic nations hold India accountable for its human rights violations and cease support for a regime that claims to be the world’s largest democracy while crushing the voices of Sikhs, Kashmiris, and other oppressed communities.
