Kashmiris: The Inadvertent Bearers Of Conflict

Fakhar e Alam

Peshawar: The October 27, 1947, and August 5, 2019 are the blackest days in the history of Kashmir as on these days, India had made a deep-rooted conspiracy to rob Kashmiris of their history, language and ethno-cultural identity, said former Ambassador Manzoor ul Haq.

Jammu and Kashmir People’s League (JKPL) Vice Chairman Mushtaq Ahmed Shah informedthat the people of Azad Kashmir would stage big protest rallies and demonstrations on October 27 to condemn the illegal occupation of Indian Illegally Occupied Jummu and Kashmir (IIOJK) by India.

In the world, the 27th of October is observed as Black Day by the people of Kashmir as 76 years ago on this day, India, without legal justification, forcibly occupied the Muslim-dominated state of Jummu and Kashmir by depriving its people of all rights, liberties, and independence.

The unending repression, human rights’ abuses, and organised Indian state terrorism that started with an illegal invasion at Srinagar on October 27, 1947, were further intensified after the fascist Modi government unlawfully revoked the special status of the IIOJK on August 5, 2019.

Breaking all records of human rights abuses and war crimes in IIOJK, India’s apartheid regime deprived the oppressed Kashmiris of all civil, economic, constitutional, and political rights and liberties after abrogating Articles 370 and 35 A on August 5, 2019, thereby holding hostage millions of oppressed Kashmiris at gunpoint in the held valley, where life has become a nightmare for millions of Kashmiris, especially children and women.

“India can’t change IIOJK’s autonomous status unilaterally in the wake of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. The Indian government’s illegal acts of August 5, 2019 were neither endorsed by the UNSC nor by any foreign country, and the Hinduvata regime is now repenting after internationalising the Kashmir dispute that put peace in South Asia at stake,” Manzoor added.

University of PeshawarDepartmentof Political Science Former Chairman AH Hilali stated that strategic stability has been threatened by India as it continues to receive an abundant supply of conventional and non-conventional weapons that put the peace of South Asia at stake.

The unprecedented increase in India’s military budget and expenditures in recent years has characterised the global security landscape as grim, Hilali further said.

Chairman added that the lukewarm response of the Indian government regarding issues of visas for the Pakistani cricket team, journalists, and fans of the Cricket World Cup magnified the intolerant and prejudice-based attitude of the Indian apartheid regime.

Great Hurriyat leader Muhammad Yasin Malik was jailed for life in a fake case in a bid to silence his strong voice for Kashmir’s freedom and terrorize other Kashmir leadership.

Despite the brutal killing of freedom fighter Burhan Wani and other Kashmiri leadership in a fake encounter, he said India has failed to suppress the indigenous freedom movement in IIOJK.

Mushtaq Ahmed claimed over six million illegal domicile certificates of IIOJK have been provided to Hindus in a bid to bring about demographic change there.

The gruesome violations of human rights, including the forced disappearance of over 8,000 innocent Kashmiris, 8,652 unmarked mass graves, the imposition of the longest curfew on some 10 million unarmed Kashmiris, extrajudicial killings, and human rights abuses, especially against women and children, exposed India’s ugly secular face, further added Ahmed.

Citing media reports, Ahmed Shah said that 13 innocent Kashmiris fell to Indian bullets in September last year and around 96246 since January 1989 in the occupied territory. The Kashmir leader, while referring to September 2021’s Pakistani dossier, said about 8,652 unmarked graves were identified in 89 villages in six districts in the held valley, while the bodies of 37 Kashmiris burned alive by Indian forces were beyond recognition.

Since 1989, he said over 96,000 cases of extra judicial killings, around 162,000 cases of arbitrary arrests and torture, over 25,000 pellet guns injuries, 11,250 women raped, 23,000 women widowed and over 108,000 children orphaned by the Indian army.

An excessive use of snipers and cluster ammunition by India to target innocent Kashmiris along the Line of Control (LoC), the use of children and women as human shields by the Indian army during encounters, making them sleep at military camps, forcing them to dig out minefields, and tying youth on military jeeps had testified to the Modi government’s direct involvement in war crimes and genocide of Kashmiris, added JKPLVice Chairman.

Manzoorul Haq explained that the illegal occupation of the Kashmir valley by India contravened multiple articles of the 30 fundamental human rights of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), drafted by representatives from all the regions of the world, including India, on December 10, 1948, and subsequently adopted by the General Assembly.

Haq said this declaration was applied to all the signatory members of the UN, including India, and restrained them from all kinds of abuses, exploitation, maltreatment, and violence, besides violations of any fundamental rights protected in the UDHR.

University of PeshawarDepartmentof International Relations Former ChairmanEjaz Khan opined that the international community should look beyond trade and business interests and step forward with collective action to stop the genocide of oppressed Kashmiris.

Besides pressuring the Modi government to reverse all its illegal actions of August 5, 2019 and give them the right to self-determination for lasting peace and stability in South Asia, Ejaz added.

Fakhar-e-Alam is a Peshawar-based APP correspondent, and the feature is released by APP. All information and facts provided are the sole responsibility of the writer.