Kashmir not internal matter of India
PAKISTAN has all these years been telling India as well as the world at large at all international forums and occasions that Kashmir is not India’s internal matter and that Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K) is a duly recognized territory and Kashmir dispute remains to be resolved peacefully in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and aspirations of the Kashmiris by letting them exercise their right of self-determination.
This latest heated exchange of arguments between India and Pakistan took place recently following Prime Minister Imran Khan’s virtual address to the UN General Assembly wherein he strongly and emphatically had highlighted Indian occupying security forces in the IIOJ&K on going brutalities and atrocities on Kashmiris struggling for securing freedom from more than seven decades slavery of India and called for solution of lingering unresolved Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution avoiding another conflict between the neighbouring nuclear powers.
Quite expectedly this provoked reaction from lady Indian diplomat, according to the reports, who claimed that occupied Kashmir and Ladakh “were, are and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India and that this also included areas that are occupied by Pakistan”.
Exercising her right of reply in the UN General Assembly, Pakistani woman diplomat Saima Saleem put the records straight straightaway and emphatically stated that Kashmir is not so-called integral part of India nor it is India’s internal matter.
Reiterating Pakistan’s oft-stated stance and updating the UN General Assembly diplomats, she said that India is levelling baseless accusations and relying on outright lies and obfuscation mainly to divert the world attention from the ongoing most gross human rights violations in occupied Kashmir.
There is no denying the fact, irrespective of whether India keeps on harping on its own music, India remains in occupation of an internationally recognized disputed territory whose final disposition needs to be decided in accordance with the democratic principle of a free and impartial plebiscite under auspices of the United Nations as provided for under numerous resolutions of the UN Security Council which India has been defying for the last more than seven decades.
India’s compulsive obsession with Pakistan is as such neither surprising nor new particularly to those who have been taking keen interest in the sub-continent affairs.
But there is a method to this obsession as it underpins India’s electoral and foreign policy under the ruling BSS-BJP Hindutwa inspired government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
European Union Disinfo lab, it is a matter of bitter record , had explained as how India has used such tools of deflection, deception and disinformation against Pakistan every now and then including even at the United Nations itself also.
As briefly mentioned above, it is also a matter of record that UN Human Rights Commissioner had also documented Indian human rights violations at the hands of occupying security forces against unarmed innocent Kashmiris struggling for freedom in its two reports.
This is not all. Several other special rapporteurs and mandate holders have also termed the rapidly aggravating human rights situation in IIOJ&K in a “free fall”.
Major human rights organizations including the Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International have also expressed similar serious concerns about human rights violations in India and particularly in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
A witch hunt had been launched against those who dared to report the crimes and only last year Amnesty International had ceased work in India citing constant harassment at the hands of the Indian government.
It is also worth mentioning here that Pakistan had recently released a comprehensive dossier on the systematic and widespread human rights violations being perpetuated by Indian occupying security forces against Kashmiris men, women, youth in the occupied valley.
The international community should take cognizance of the compelling evidence so provided and hold India account able for the heinous crimes.
If all fairness, if India has nothing to hide it should accept a UN Commission of Inquiry and agree to implement the long denied and defied UN Security Resolutions stipulating a plebiscite enabling the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their birth right of self-determination.
It is a bitter and deplorable record that India has been and continues to be sponsoring, organizing, patronizing and financing terrorism in Pakistan.
This is an open secret that India uses the canard of terrorism, regurgitating stale arguments that are typical of all occupiers.
Factual position is that India itself is the principal perpetrator, sponsor, financier and abettor of terrorism in the region.
To put the bitter facts together for the information of the international community and the world at large, India is currently involved in at least four different types of terrorism. First being state terrorism to suppress the people occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Second being funding and supporting terrorist groups such as the proscribed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan which is involved in cross border terrorism attacks against Pakistani Army and civilian targets.
Thirdly, India is financing and organizing mercenary terrorist organizations against Pakistan to impede economic growth and prosperity of the region.
This has, as per reports, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has also publicly admitted.
Fourthly, India is being guided by a supremacist ideology that has mainstreamed Islamophobia and bigotry against minorities particularly Muslims in its political discourse.
As has also been previously stated at the highest level of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, in today’s incredibly intolerant India, the 200 million strong Muslim minority faces frequent lynching cow vigilantes, pogroms by RSS thugs with official complicity, discriminatory citizenship laws to dis-enfranchise Muslims and a concerted campaign to destroy mosques and the rich Muslim heritage of India.
All these internal and external challenges topped by persistent Indian sponsored terrorism can be faced squarely, boldly and courageously by the people of Pakistan by standing united, determined and, over and above, political and other affiliations and other considerations only as a Pakistani and nothing else, please.
—The writer is a retired Deputy Controller (News), Radio Pakistan, based in Lahore.
