ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said on Sunday that a verdict on the future of Kashmir could only be given by the people of the region, not Sushma Swaraj, the External Affairs Minister of India.

He was responding to a statement by Ms Swaraj that “the whole of Jammu and Kashmir belongs to India and Kashmir will never become part of Pakistan”.

“Such a verdict on the future of Kashmir can only be given by the people of Kashmir and not by the external affairs minister of India. This right has been promised to the people of Kashmir by the UN Security Council,” the adviser said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

He said it was high time that India allowed the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise this right through a free and fair plebiscite supervised by the United Nations.

Once the majority of the people of Kashmir voted for joining either Pakistan or India, the whole world would accept this verdict, he said.

Regarding Ms Swaraj’s objection to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement about a Kashmiri leader, Mr Aziz said: “Here again, India cannot ignore the fact that over 200,000 Kashmiris participated in the funeral prayers for Burhan Muzaffar Wani at 50 different locations throughout India-occupied Kashmir despite strict curfew clamped in the valley, which still continues 15 days after Wani’s extrajudicial murder on July 8.

“Let us not forget, as one Indian writer has reminded us, that not long ago the British labelled Indian freedom fighters as traitors and terrorists because at that time India was considered an integral part of the British Empire.”

Mr Aziz said the government and people of Pakistan remained firmly committed in their moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiris’ indigenous movement for self-determination and resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UNSC resolutions.

He urged the UN, the international community and human rights organisations to play their role for stopping Indian atrocities in India-held Kashmir against innocent and defenceless Kashmiris.

Even in India, conscientious voices had raised concern over the brutalities and reign of terror unleashed by the Indian forces in the region, he added.

Meanwhile, another protester injured during clashes with Indian forces died in a hospital in India-held Kashmir on Sunday, taking the death toll from the violence since July 8 to 49.

More than 5,500 people, at least 2,259 civilians among them, have been injured, including scores who were shot in the eyes with pellets by troops and may have been blinded.

Large parts of the region remained under a security lockdown as mobile phone and internet networks remained suspended.

The clashes are the deadliest in the region since 2010 when massive demonstrations were held against Indian rule.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2016