Staff Reporter
Speakers at a seminar hosted by Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) in Islamabad made a passionate appeal to the UN Security Council to implement its resolutions that guaranteed right to self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The seminar titled “Denial of Right to Self-Determination & BJP’s Hindu Conquest of Kashmir” was attended and addressed by prominent rights activists, academicians, former diplomats, law experts and Kashmiri leaders hailing from both sides of the Line of Control (LoC). The speakers included MNA Ms Noureen Farooq Abrahim Khan, JI leader Abdul Rashid Turabi, Pakistan Peoples Party AJK President Chaudhry Abdul Lateef Akbar, Syed Muhammad Ali Director Centre for Aerospace Security Studies (CASS), Prof Dr Muhammad Khan, Dr Owais Wasi, Dr Qaisir Raja, Syed Faiz Naqashbandi, Muhammad Ahmed Saghar and Advocate Parveez Shah. The event was chaired by KIIR Chairman, Altaf Hussain Wani, while Chairman Kashmir Committee Shaheryar Khan Afridi was chief guest but due to ill health could not speak.
In his opening statement the KIIR Chief, Altaf Hussain Wani, while highlighting the dangerous dimensions of the Kashmir dispute said that India’s denial to grant the Kashmiris their promised right was not only a violation of the UN resolutions but it was a negation of the UN’s decolonization agenda that paved a way for successful culmination of freedom struggles in many parts of the world, including Asia. The same principle, he said, was applied for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute when it was brought into the notice of the UN in 1948 by India after occupying a major portion of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said, “The adoption of historic resolution on 5th January 1949 came as a great beacon-light of hope to millions of Kashmiris as they began to believe that the moment for their freedom was at hand and they too will finally receive justice so long denied to them by occupiers.” He added that Kashmiris’ cherished dream of freedom from foreign occupation was soon turned into a nightmarish ordeal by the crafty Indian rulers who brazenly violated the norms of international law and the commitments they made vis-à-vis holding plebiscite in the region.
