ISLAMABAD: As India steps up repression in Occupied Kashmir, top leadership of Azad Kashmir will be meeting on Sunday (today) to chalk out a future course of action on the issue.
The event will be an all parties Kashmir conference convened by AJK President Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry.
Key leaders of all political parties, including leader of the house, leader of the opposition, former presidents and prime ministers, will participate in the conference.
Talking to Dawn, AJK President Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry said the conference had been convened at a time when India had stepped up terrorism and continued with ethnic cleansing at a higher pace.
He said the Kashmiri leadership from Azad Kashmir – the base camp of Kashmir liberation movement – would discuss ways and means to effectively highlight the Kashmir issue at the international level and help bring to an end the atrocities against Kashmiri people struggling to achieve their internationally-recognised right to self-determination.
Mr Chaudhry said since India’s Hindu-nationalist government led by Narendra Modi scrapped the region’s special status guaranteed by India’s constitution and done away with a ban on permanent settlement of non-Kashmiris in the region, over 4.2 million Hindus had been issued fake domiciles as part of a conspiracy for a demographic shift in Occupied Kashmir.
He regretted that the world’s apathy and inaction to stop Indian forces from committing war crimes, adding that the Hindutva regime had resorted to change the demography of Kashmir by bringing settlers from other parts of India.
He said over 900,000 Indian troops had turned the occupied territory into one of the largest open prisons in the world, but despite facing the worst form of Indian state terrorism, the people of the occupied valley had always shown extraordinary courage, strength and resilience.
“Fascist India could not break their will by using brutal force,” he said.
The AJK president asked the international community and world powers to persuade India to stop its killing spree inthe Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir(IIOJK) and ensure resolution of the Kashmir dispute as per the UN resolutions.
“India claims to be the largest democracy but is a terrorist state as its troops are involved in genocide and ethnic cleansing of innocent Kashmiri people,” he said.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2022
