Islamabad
The Acting Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar has urged the world leaders to take effective notice of India’s colonialism drive intended to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers in occupied Kashmir.
Mehmood Ahmed Saghar in a joint communiqué addressed to the leaders of P5 countries and the UN chief, Mr António Guterres, said the events unfolding in the disputed territory reflect settler-colonialism policies of the Indian state, which, he added, violate the sanctity of the UN resolutions on Kashmir.
Referring to 5th August 2019 move by the Indian state, he said that the contentious move was an act of aggression and an outrageous assault on the rights of the people of the territory, who, he said, had been time and again pushed into throes of instability and perpetual violence by India.
“Stripping the territory of its autonomous status by revoking Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution last year was a deep-rooted conspiracy to erase the Kashmiris’ political, cultural and national identity”, the communiqué said, adding that the attempted annexation of Kashmir had pushed the region into a quagmire of uncertainty. Caught between conflict and the coronavirus, the joint communiqué noted that a population of nearly 8 million people had been under virtual siege for the past one year.
“While the world governments are hectically engaged in combating the coronavirus pandemic the Indian government has remorselessly used the COVID-19 situation as an opportunity to extend its colonial agenda in the restive region by enforcing a set of new laws that go against the rights and interests of the indigenous population”, the communiqué said.
Referring to India’s nefarious designs the communiqué further said, “To wipe out the state’s homogeneous character New Delhi has now started an inclusive settler-colonialism drive under the garb of new domicile law to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers”.
“With the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution, which had restricted land ownership to Kashmiri state subjects, a series of new laws were enforced in the territory that besides opening floodgates for Indian settlers will enable them to have more capital to take over Kashmiri lands”, the communiqué said.—KMS
