The Independent Human Rights Commission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Friday “strongly condemned” the Indian government’s recent delimitation of electoral constituencies in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, terming it a violation of OIC and United Nations Security Council resolutions. Last week, New Delhi issued a new list of redrawn political constituencies for India-occupied Kashmir, giving greater representation to the Muslim-majority region’s Hindu areas and paving the way for fresh elections.
In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government broke up the India-occupied territory into two federal territories as part of a move to tighten its grip over the region. The occupied region originally comprised the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley, the Hindu-dominated Jammu region, and the remote Buddhist enclave of Ladakh.
However, earlier this month, the Indian government said a delimitation commission had finalised 90 assembly constituencies for occupied Kashmir, excluding Ladakh, with 43 seats for Jammu and 47 for Kashmir. Earlier, Jammu had 37 seats and the Kashmir valley 46.
The delimitation commission claimed it had been difficult to accommodate competing claims from various sides, citing in a statement the region’s “peculiar geo-cultural landscape”. In a statement, the OIC’s human rights body termed India’s move a violation of international human rights and humanitarian laws.
