Our Correspondent
New York
The AJK President, Sardar Masood Khan, has said that while the Kashmiris continue to wage a peaceful struggle for their right to self-determination against 900,000 heavily armed Indian troops, no one from the international community has come to their rescue. He added that over the years we the Kashmiris have appealed to the international community including the Organization for Islamic Cooperation to stop the genocide, carnage and ethnic cleansing happening before their eyes.
In a statement read out at the meeting of OIC Contact Group on Kashmir held at the sideline of 74th UN General Assembly session, he emphasized the UN Security Council to take exception to India’s aggressive posture which poses grave dangers to peace and security in the region. He urged the international community to find a final and just solution to the long outstanding Kashmir dispute in accordance with its own resolutions as well as wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
The AJK president said that on the 52nd consecutive day of curfew and telecommunication blackout, the gun-toting soldiers patrol deserted streets and the people besieged in their homes, have been deprived of food, water and medicines. “Peaceful protests against Indian actions are being quelled with live ammunition and pellet firing shotguns,” he said, adding that thousands of Kashmiri lawmakers, political activists, businessmen, lawyers, students and teachers have been detained and tortured.
He lamented that water boarding, electricity shocks, beatings with cables and rods, feeding of feces are being used against the detainees, and the bulk of the detainees have been shifted to the most notorious prisons of India. “In midnight raids, Indian soldiers barge into houses, kick and insult the elderly and threaten women with rape and molestation. They have objectified women and are telling them that they are spoils of war after India’s victory over Kashmir; he said and added that the present situation has caused human rights and humanitarian crisis in the territory
Sardar Masood Khan said that India’s unilateral and aggressive action of August 5, was in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, and international humanitarian law. He said that India is pushing the region to the brink of war and is threatening Pakistan with the use of nuclear weapons. All this aggression and state-terror is being driven by the fascist Hindutva doctrine, which has vowed that it would wipe out Muslims from South Asia.
