ISLAMABAD: The United Nations has been asked to implement its resolutions on Kashmir.

Briefing a visiting Turkish media delegation on Friday, Director General of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute University Dr Maria Sultan said Pakistan expected the UN to act and help resolve the decades-old issue.

She said the UN Security Council resolutions of 1948 recognised the Kashmiris’ right to determine their destiny through a free and impartial plebiscite.

On August 5, India illegally revoked Articles 370 and 35A. “With this unlawful action, New Delhi has brought the oldest unresolved dispute to the centre-stage of hostilities between India and Pakistan,” she added.

“India has buried alive the Kashmiris. They have become stateless in their homes. India has violated all human rights in the held territory,” she said.

Dr Sultan said the president rule could not be proclaimed in Jammu and Kashmir, only governor rule could be imposed in that state.

“Jammu and Kashmir has its own criminal code — the Ranbir Penal Code. Article 370 (1) enjoins four clauses — (a), (b), (c) and (d). Article 370 (1)(a) reads: “Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, the provisions of Article 238 shall not apply in relation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir.”

She said Article 35-A was incorporated in the Constitution in 1954 by an order of then president Dr Rajendra Prasad on the advice of the Jawahar Lal Nehru’s cabinet.

“The Constitutional (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954 followed the 1952 Delhi Agreement entered between Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, and then prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, which extended citizenship to the ‘State Subjects’ of Jammu and Kashmir.” So, Article 35-A was added to the Constitution as a testimony of the special consideration to the Indian government accorded to the “permanent residents” of Jammu and Kashmir, she said.

“Moreover, 164 laws have been repealed, 166 laws retained and another 106 laws extended under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019. In an overall scenario, the question of Indian parliament’s inheritance of the state’s constituent assembly to change the structure of the state assemblies raises a bigger concern for the state,” she said.

Dr Sultan said the Indian step also violated the international law and all of the earlier agreements signed between the former governments of both sides — India and the State of J&K.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2019