Our Correspondent
MUZAFFARABAD: :Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan Thursday called upon the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to use his influence for the cessation of the massacre of innocent people in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and halt of illegal settlement of hundreds of thousands of Hindus in the disputed territory.
Expressing his reaction over the ceasefire appeal made by the UN Secretary-General to the people and groups involved in conflicts across the world, the president said the appeal for peace and tranquility without any reference to Kashmir was incomplete and meaningless, AJK President office said.
“UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres must make an appeal to Indian occupation forces to stop killing Kashmiris in IIOJK. Without mentioning Kashmir, his call is incomplete,” Masood said.
The president said that eight million people of IIOJK have been besieged by about one million Indian troops for the last 14 months. On the one hand, they are facing repression of the Indian Army while on the other, they are fighting the pandemic of novel coronavirus, and many of them are of the opinion that the repression of the Indian Army and the ill-treatment of the Indian government towards them was more disastrous and painful than coronavirus.
He lamented that under the garb of coronavirus, the Indian Army was massacring the Kashmiri people in the occupied territory, youth are being incarcerated, and the Indian citizens are being granted domicile of Kashmir and are being settled in the homeland of the Kashmiri people. Sardar Masood Khan asserted that all this is being done to turn the Muslims into a minority in Kashmir and to eliminate the Islamic entity of the state once and for all.
“The settlement of non-Kashmiri subjects in the occupied territory not only negates the UN resolutions but under the Geneva Convention and other international laws, this is a war crime as well”, he said adding that being a custodian of peace and security as well as a human rights champion, it is obligatory for the United Nations particularly the Security Council and it’s Human Rights Council to intervene and hold India accountable for violating international laws and stop it from the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri people.
Strongly condemning eviction of nomads of occupied Kashmir from their centuries-old localities and destroying their mud houses, the state president said that this action Indian authorities were reminiscent of the campaign Hitler had launched against Romanis in the first half of the 20th century.
“Like Hitler killed hundreds of thousands of Romanis (or Roma gypsies), Indian occupiers in IIOJK are going after Gujjar Muslims and Bakarwals (nomads). Occupation forces are demolishing their dhoks and baeks, temporary summer residences for them and livestock in pastures at heights,” Masood asserted.
Terming latest Indian move to hold elections of the so-called District Development Councils (DDCs) in IIOJK as a ruse, Masood said it is another attempt on the part of New Delhi to deceive the international community and the Kashmiri people. He warned that those taking part in elections will endorse Delhi’s colonial rule in IIOJK.