MUBASHAR NAQVI
MUZAFFARABAD President Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Masood Khan Thursday strongly condemned India’s move whereby non-local people, predominantly Hindus from India, will be given domicile in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK), a disputed state. ‘Kashmiris will never accept these rules and oppose them with tooth and nail’, he said in a video message. This new rule will replace the rights of indigenous Kashmiris under Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution that covered permanent residence, education, employment and acquisition of property. The AJK President called upon the UN Security Council and Secretary General Antonio Gutteres to intervene because the issue is on the agenda of the Council. India, he said, ‘cannot change the demographic composition of a disputed territory recognised as such by the UN Security Council resolutions’. The Human Rights Council and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) should also take cognizance because Indian actions violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court covering illicit transfer of population and changes in demography. ‘This is a war crime’, the President said. The new domicile rule lays down that those Indians with 15- year stay, 7-year study or having appeared in Class10/ 12 exams, in IOJK, will quality for the domicile. Migrant workers from different Indian states as well as the so-called West Pakistan refugees will also be given that status. The President said the BJP-RSS regime announced these heinous and unlawful rules in the dead of night, without the consent of the Kashmiris, to change demography of IOJK. ‘It committed this crime against humanity under the cover of the coronavirus crisis and information blackout’, he added. Practically, he said, these rules obtain by force for former Indian armed forces personnel and civil servants as well as for their families and children. Meanwhile, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan on Thursday appealed P5 members of the UN Security Council to take immediate cognizance of the Indian attempt to illegally change the demographic structure of occupied Kashmir. In a special statement issued here, the Prime Minister strongly condemned and rejected the Indian introduction of “Jammu and Kashmir Re-organization Order 2020” and termed it against the fundamental rights of Kashmiris and sheer violations of UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. “India after abrogating the special status of the disputed territory, in her second step wants to deprive Kashmir of its Muslim identity by converting the majority of Muslims into a minority”, the PM added
