Legal experts based in Srinagar have said that India is using lawfare as a tool to prolong its illegal hold over Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the legal experts in their interviews and statements said India is plotting to change dynamics of Kashmir dispute through the use of lawfare. They said the Narendra Modi-led Indian government’s illegal actions on August 05, 2019 opened a more brutal chapter in Kashmir’s tortured history.
The legal experts maintained that as part of lawfare, the Modi regime used its pliant judiciary to uphold its Kashmir specific illegal actions of 5 August, 2019. They said the Indian Supreme Court’s decision in Article 370 case was aimed at solidifying India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir. They added that since 5 August 2019, India has introduced many new laws to consolidate its illegal occupation of the territory.
The legal experts pointed out that the Modi regime has taken a number of steps including administrative, demographic and electoral to disempower and disenfranchise Kashmiris. They said, New Delhi has introduced many new laws to facilitate issuance of domiciles and land-owning rights to non-Kashmiri Hindus and to seize land from locals to be given to the outsiders.
The legal experts deplored that every Indian action is aimed at eroding the culture, language and religious identity of Muslims in IIOJK. They said the new laws and regulations being implemented by the Modi regime in the occupied territory are aimed at weakening the Kashmiri Muslims politically and economically. India is systematically paving the way for settler colonialism in IIOJK by introducing new laws and illegally altering the demography of the territory in violation of UN resolutions and international laws, they added.
The legal experts said that the Modi regime’s illegal revocation of special status of occupied Kashmir on 5 August 2019 was a brazen violation of UN Security Council resolutions. They said, occupied Kashmir is an example of a brutal occupation where international laws have been flouted for decades. However, they maintained that India’s illegal actions cannot change the fact that Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory and added that the Indian policies of force and fraud will only strengthen the Kashmiri Muslims’ resolve to resist occupation.—KMS
