ISLAMABAD: In occupied Kashmir, in the backdrop of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Kashmir, the Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Muhammad Yasin Malik has said that roads and tunnels cannot make a nation change its freedom course.

Muhammad Yasin Malik in a statement issued in Srinagar said, "If tunnels and roads would have been a substitute to freedom and dignity, then British should have never left India as it had developed Indian infrastructure enormously. People who sided with British during Indian freedom struggle can never understand the
ethos of freedom struggle and psyche of freedom lovers," KMS reported.

Malik reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertions at Udhampur said, "The statement of Indian Prime Minister that `Kashmiris should choose between terrorism and tourism and that youth striving for freedom are misguided' is absurd.

British ruled India for more than 200 years and during that period they developed Indian infrastructure enormously. It was British who developed Indian railway system and irrigation canals that are until now benefitting whole South Asia and if the standards of Modi Ji were to be applied then British should never have left Indian neither should have Gandhi, Nehru, Subash Chander Bose, Baghat Singh and Moulana Azad strived for the freedom of
India," Malik said.

"Our reply to Modi Ji is the same that was given by Gandhi ji to a British envoy who had posed same type of question to him that how can poor Indian survive independently, Gandhi had replied that he would prefer a non-competent poor independent rule over a competent and wealthy forcibly controlled nation," he said. -APP