Islamabad
Former India-appointed interlocutor on Kashmir, Radha Kumar, has said that everything has become worse in occupied Kashmir since August 05, 2019.
Narendra Modi-led fascist government in New Delhi had repealed the special status of occupied Kashmir on 5th August, last year, and placed the territory under military siege, which still continues.
Radha Kumar in an interview with Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia, said, “In this one year, everything has become worse. The alienation is worse, anger is stronger, cynicism is more pronounced and the sense that India wants to quash and humiliate Kashmiris is stronger”.
She cited new measures taken by New Delhi – such as a domicile law where outsiders can become residents of occupied Kashmir, a media policy to control the territory’s media and a building law allowing the Indian military to buy land and make a permanent structure – that are fueling strong resentment among people.
Radha Kumar was one of the 21 high-profile Indian and Kashmiri activists who prepared a report on Kashmir released a year into India’s lockdown of the territory. The 70-page report, “Jammu and Kashmir: The Impact of Lockdowns on Human Rights,” which was recently released by New Delhi-based Forum for Human Rights – a rights body comprising prominent jurists, former diplomats and academicians – said that the economic, social and political impact of India’s actions had been disastrous.—KMS
