LAHORE: Political experts and analysts have urged the international community, particularly the UN, to stand up for the oppressed people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), who are facing the worst and most brutal violations of their human rights in the internationally recognized disputed territory.
Political experts and analysts said on Sunday that Kashmir had been a burning issue since the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947. Pakistan and India have fought three wars over Kashmir in 1948, 1965, and 1999, but have been unable to settle the dispute.
After the Partition of Indian Subcontinent, millions of Kashmiris felt unsafe and uncertain about their fate. They were required to accede to either of the two countries on the basis of wishes of their people and the geographical location.
Since 1947, Article 370 had given Jammu and Kashmir a semi-autonomous constitutional status.
Earlier, under its provisions, the region had freedom in all matters except its constitution, legislature, flag, foreign affairs, communications and defence. Anger has simmered in the region and the situation further worsened when Narendra Modi-led regime on August 5, 2019 abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, by repealing articles 370 and 35-A.
Meanwhile, Modi-led BJP government imposed a lockdown in the occupied Kashmir, allowing Indian forces to perpetrate unspeakable crimes against the masses, with complete impunity.
In IIOJK, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and other bodies have strongly condemned the Modi-led fascist Indian government for forcibly implementing secret and nefarious agenda by usurping all fundamental rights of the people of Kashmir, including social, political, economic and religious rights.
Ending the old status of Kashmir is an attempt to usurp the rights of Kashmiri people by eradicating their fundamental rights related to their social, linguistic, cultural, economic and political existence, former chairperson HRCP told APP.
By abrogating the Article-370 and Article-35A, Indian parliament illegally allowed non-Kashmiris to resettle in Kashmir permanently. Whereas actually, the Constitution of Kashmir first defines membership and settlement.
According to this amendment, non-Kashmiris are now allowed to buy property, keep it and settle in Kashmir permanently, the sources said. According to the current change, regarding land as a sole property, will not allow them to live on land as they have historically been doing.
These changes will also subject to population-rearrangement in Kashmir, they informed while replying to a query.
Moreover, the Indian forces were using rape, molestation and sexual violence against women and children as a weapon of war, besides collective punishment, in a bid to suppress the legitimate freedom movement in the occupied valley,” they said.
Unfortunately, Kashmiris have speculated since decades, that India intends to settle paramilitary families and military settlements there, as well as establishment of semi-permanent military colonies in Kashmir.
Indigenous Kashmiris, have long faced threats to their existence as well as their inherited rights, especially ‘relative’ land rights. This will make indigenous peoples aliens.
Former senator from Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Sehar Kamran (TI), told APP that the latest controversy had been reported by international media that extrajudicial-murders of a number of Kashmiris have become a routine in the Kulgam area of the occupied territory.
Cruelty knows no bounds, and after the men were gunned down, their bodies were not returned to their families, she condemned adding that New Dehli was losing the battle of hearts and minds in occupied Kashmir.
The Indian occupational forces’ state terrorism, war crimes and human rights violations had made life a nightmare for over one million oppressed Kashmiris, especially women, senior citizens and children in IIOJK , she remarked.
Violating all fundamental rights, India had imposed military siege on some 10 million Kashmiris in IIOJK, by converting the territory into biggest jail on earth, where over 900,000 Indian forces had been deployed with no regards for human rights, she lamented.
Since 1989, she said, the Indian occupational forces had committed worst crimes, as more than 162,000 Kashmiris had been subjected to inhuman torture, including beatings with iron rods, stripping naked, heavy roller treatment, hanging from ceiling, electrocution, burning of the body with iron rods, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, sexualised torture including rape, molestation and sodomy.
Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik’s wife Mushaal Hussein Mullick told APP that the RSS-inspired ‘Hindutva’ ideology was being pursued by BJP-led Modi government is a major threat to ‘foreign investment’ in India.
She said fascist Modi and the Indian Army were turning Kashmiris into a minority in the valley by issuing domiciles to Indian citizens. In IIOJK, over 100,000 Kashmiris had been killed by Indian forces since 1989, while more than 7,200 people were murdered in custodial torture by Indian army.
The Kashmir Media Service (KMS), in its recent report, revealed that so for more than 11,000 women had been raped by Indian soldiers and over 110,000 children turned orphans, whereas around 23,000 women were made widows by the Indian troops.
Besides, the growing Indian atrocities in the occupied valley and the illegal August 2019 revocation had resulted in worldwide criticism against the extremist policies of Modi-led government.
The KMS, while quoting the APHC spokesman, denounced the ill-designed proposal of the so-called Delimitation Commission (DC) to increase six seats for Jammu and one for Kashmir valley for the so-called IIOJK Legislative Assembly on the false census-reports.
International Forum for Justice, Human Rights Jammu and Kashmir Chairman Muhammad Ahsan Untoo appealed to the international community and world human rights organisations to hold India accountable for its state terrorism in the territory.
In a message from Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu, he said the entire world was standing with the people of Ukraine, but turned a blind eye to what India had been doing in IIOJK for the last several decades.
However, the apathy and hypocrisy of other countries by keeping mum over India’s atrocities in IIOJK due to their economic interests is an eye-opener for the global champions of human rights.
