Srinagar
Eminent citizens of India and Pakistan have said that India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was bent to overturn the Muslim majority character of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
They said that New Delhi was committing “gross injustices, ranging from kidnapping and torture of minors to decimating the identity of people”.
They stated this in a report, titled The Siege: A Year Since Abrogation, drafted by the members of Jammu and Kashmir Solidarity Group and Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy.
The comprehensive report based on eyewitness accounts and findings of fact-finding teams, which visited the region, said the Indian government has violated internationally recognized fundamental rights and its constitutional values and guaranteed freedoms.
Author and activist, Rita Manchanda, said the fact-finding teams worked as a commission of inquiry and included journalists, social and rights activists besides researchers.
“The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) [patron organization of various Hindu rightwing groups, including the BJP] could not live with the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim majority region and that its status was protected by a law, that is, Article 370 and Article 35A of Indian Constitution,” the report said.
On August 5, last year, the Indian government abrogated Article 370, which allowed Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir to have its constitution, flag, and a legislature that could make laws independently from the Indian Parliament. The Article 35A barred outsiders from buying property or applying for government jobs in the occupied territory to protect its demographic character. The move has raised fears that Indian Hindus in large numbers will be settled in the disputed region to change its Muslim-majority character.
The report said that the whole purpose of revoking Article 370 was to settle outsiders and change the demography of the territory. Now, new law has been created to provide modalities to settle many categories of Indians in Jammu and Kashmir, it added. The report further said another law has been introduced in the past one year that undermines ownership rights of Kashmiri people over immovable properties and at the same time facilitates the takeover of land for industry and military control.
Noting that torture has been used in Kashmir earlier also, but the report said that in post-August 5, 2019 period it is no longer used individuals but to inflict collective silence and impose might of the Indian state. “Kashmiris were detained on the flimsiest grounds, most of them fabricated, making the entire exercise of detentions a mere paperwork formality,” it said.—KMS
