Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Masood Khan on Tuesday said the Indian rulers through their warmongering, ceasefire violations, and threats to attack Azad Kashmir and Pakistan were pushing the region to the brink of war.
In a message on completion of one year of India’s illegal action of August 5, 2019, the AJK President said, “this past year, the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), have suffered most grievously.
On August 5th last year, 900,000 Indian occupation forces invaded Kashmir and re-occupied it illegally. Ever since Indian forces had been brutalizing the people and colonizing the territory”.
The Indian occupation army, he said, had killed hundreds of young men, incarcerated thousands of boys and children and forcibly disappeared Kashmiris.
All pro-freedom leaders were under Illegal detention. Concentration camps had been set up in the IIOJK and India to force political activists to discard their quest for liberty. The occupied territory’s economy had also been ruined, he added. He said late last year, illicitly, India bifurcated the disputed territory into two parts and declared that they would be ruled by Delhi, without the consent of the people of the valley. In another sinister move this year, India launched massive import and transfer of Hindus from India to settle them in the occupied territory in order to change the demographic composition of the state. This was a flagrant violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and international law, the AJK president stated.
Khan said the scale at which these atrocities were going on had been rightly called genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kashmiris were being exterminated; they were being made aliens in their own land, homeless in their own homeland. He went on to say that full-fledged aggression against Kashmiris was driven by the Neo-Fascist Hindutva doctrine and settler colonialism as we see a replication of Nazi policies in the occupied territory. Referring to the reaction of the global community over illegal actions of India on August 5 last, the president expressed his deep gratitude to the international media, world parliaments, international civil society and human rights organisations for calling out India’s revolting and despicable crimes against humanity and for speaking up for the oppressed and besieged Kashmiris.
However, the AJK president regretted that with the exception of China, Turkey, Malaysia, Iran and West European countries, the response of the most powerful nations had been disappointing and faltering. They had not fulfilled their obligations to save Kashmiris and stop a drift toward turbulence in the region. “We thank the Organisation of Islamic Conference for its strong solidarity with the Kashmiris; and the periodic statements issued by the UN leadership. But this is not enough. We demand action,” Khan said.
“We salute unarmed but valiant Kashmiris for their resilience in the face of India’s scorched-earth policy and their resolve to resist Indian colonialism and foreign occupation. We are with them until, together, we repulse the Indian invasion and wrestle down the monster of Hindutva which is feeding on Kashmiri lives and rights”, he said. The AJK president appealed to the international community, especially the United Nations, to step forward and help us liberate the people of IIOJK. Otherwise, it would be too late. An entire people will be disenfranchised, dispossessed, displaced and destroyed altogether.
He said Kashmiris were determined to win freedom and self-determination as promised to them by the United Nations under any circumstance. “The flame of liberty will not be snuffed out by India imperialism,” Khan expressed his optimism.
Moreover, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Tuesday said India’s fanatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hell bent on to eliminate “our national existence, and we have no longer any justification to shut our eyes towards the dangers posed to our security and existence”.
Addressing a national consultative meeting on Kashmir convened by Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq in the Federal Capital, he maintained that not the governments of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir alone, but the whole Pakistani nation and the Ummah, and the world nations owed the responsibility to respond to the situation created by India’s terrorist and fascist government because the Muslims of India and occupied Kashmir were being punished for their Muslim entity, according to a news release issued here.
The AJK president said it was not the time to pass the buck in order to avoid the responsibilities. “The buck must stop at you and you should as individuals keep raising the issue,” he said, adding all should stand like rock wall against the enemy in order to frustrate its designs. “This is our moral and religious obligation to rid our brothers and sisters in occupied Kashmir of the Indian repression and barbarity, and there is no room to demonstrate apologetic attitude any more,” he said.
Appreciating the Jamaat-e-Islami for bringing the country’s political leadership and the Hurriyat leaders on one platform at this crucial juncture, Sardar Masood said it was high time to realize the enemy’s designs and take practical steps accordingly. “We must approach our friends on the global level, and seek their practical support, he said adding that the whole nation should rise up to respond to the danger India had posed to our national sovereignty and existence,” he asserted.
