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| January 27, 2003 | Monday | Ziqa’ad 23,1423 |
Kashmiris condemn Indian brutalities
ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control and in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world observed India’s Republic Day on Sunday as Black Day.
In Azad Kashmir, protest rallies, meetings and processions were organized to condemn India’s illegal stranglehold over occupied Kashmir.
The biggest event was organized in Muzaffarabad, which was addressed by Azad Kashmir’s senior minister, Syed Mumtaz Ali Gilani, besides leaders representing different political parties.
The speakers appealed to the international community to help stop the carnage in occupied Kashmir by recognizing the legitimate freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people.
They said the presence of 800,000 Indian armymen in occupied Kashmir had exposed India’s so-called secularism and hollowness of its claims to democracy.
British Kashmiris held a peaceful demonstration opposite Indian high commission in London and urged New Delhi to prevent a potential nuclear holocaust in South Asia by solving the Kashmir issue.
The demonstration was organized by Kashmir International Coordination Committee, United Kingdom, a conglomeration of 12 organizations.
A delegation led by the committee’s president, Maulana Bostan Qadiri, presented a memorandum to the high commission.
The protesters chanted slogans against Indian atrocities in held Kashmir. They came from many cities of the UK to participate in the demonstration.
“A solution to the Kashmir problem is paramount for peace in South Asia and India holds the key to it,” said the memorandum.
It reminded New Delhi on its Republic Day that, “the people of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir are reeling under Indian subjugation with their basic political and human rights denied and abused.”
“The Indian denial of the right of the Kashmiris to decide their political future has been a major cause of the Kashmir tragedy and is against the spirit of true freedom and democracy that India is celebrating on this day,” it said.
The memorandum called upon India to end killing and suffering of the Kashmiri people and to prevent nuclear conflict over the issue.
“Let the danger of war and nuclear holocaust be lifted from over the peoples of South Asia, so that the people of the region live in peace and harmony with each other without being subjugated or suppressed by the bigger or stronger communities or countries,” it said .
It urged Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee “to stop the mass murder of Kashmiris, uphold their human rights and give serious consideration to involving Kashmiri people in efforts to resolve the long-pending conflict.”
“We hope that sanity prevails upon the government of India to realise that the Kashmiris right to self-determination cannot either be denied or delayed. An early recognition of this reality would benefit India as well as the whole region of South Asia,” it said.
Since its occupation of Jammu and Kashmir, India has tried every method from staging election dramas to changing its demographic character and other numerous shows of deception or force, it said.
Kashmiris had always resisted occupation of their homeland and continued their indigenous struggle for their right to self-determination under United Nations Security Council resolutions, it said.
During the last 15 years, it said, Kashmiris had suffered hugely in their fight to press India to honour its commitment that Kashmiris be allowed to decide their political future, it said.
So far, over 80,000 innocent Kashmiris had been killed by the brutalities of more than half a million Indian army present in every nook and corner of the Valley, it stated.
“Women have been gang-raped, children mauled, youth sent to prison without trial, thousands tortured, beaten to death, killed in custody, burnt alive, without any consideration for age or sex,” said the memorandum. Their property and livelihood had been destroyed mercilessly and indiscriminately, it said.
However, all the wanton repression had not dampened their will, it said.
Kashmiris would continue their struggle and demand that India allowed them to decide their future without any threat or force, as it had promised in the UN under its resolution on Kashmir, it said. India should learn from history that no one, howsoever strong, could keep a people under subjugation indefinitely, it said.
The APHC congratulated the Kashmiri people for observing Jan 26 as black day, reaffirming their commitment to the ongoing freedom struggle. In a message form Srinagar, the APHC said that Kashmiri people would continue to observe India’s Republic Day as black day till they got their right to self-determination, pledged to them by India and the world community.—APP
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