Special status of IOK: Speakers urge government to consult ICJ against Indian step

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a National Kashmir Consultative Conference have stressed upon the government to consult the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the Indian step to abrogate the special status of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

They were of the view that the government desperately failed to take up the Kashmir cause at international forums, thus, providing opportunity to New Delhi to tighten its grip on the held area after its August 5, 2019 move.

The conference organised by Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan was presided over by Senator Sirajul Haq, and the speakers included Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan, Former Chairman Senate Nayyar Bukhari, Milli Yakjehti Council President Sahibzada Abual Khair Zubair, PML-Z President Ijazul Haq, JUP President Pir Ijaz Hashmir, JI Secretary General Ameerul Azim, JI Deputy Emir Liaqat Baloch, and others.

Addressing the conference here on Tuesday, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan Chief Sirajul Haq, while criticising the government's policies on Kashmir issue, said that the government should announce a clear policy on the most important issue for the people of Pakistan.

Haq said that he salute the Kashmiri leadership and the sacrifices of the people for the independence movement. Occupied Kashmir is not an occupation of Kashmir but an attack on Islamabad and Karachi. He rejected "cosmetic measures" of the government and the renaming of the Kashmir Highway, and said that the Kashmiri leadership also rejects the government's move.

He demanded that the government announce a clear policy on Kashmir and the permit of the resumption of Indian air operations should be cancelled. He said Kashmir was a matter of life and death for Pakistan, and the time was running out to make a decisive move to liberate this jugular vein.

He said India under the fascist regime of Modi was bent upon turning Muslim majority into minority in Kashmir. He said Islamabad should send delegates comprising Kashmir leadership to different countries to inform the world about the latest situation in the area.

He said the horrific war could engulf the region if Modi was allowed to complete his design. Sirajul Haq said that the government should not formulate any policy without consulting the leadership of the Occupied Kashmir and Azad Kashmir, and raise the issue of Kashmir at the international level at every forum.

The Kashmir issue will not be resolved through resolutions and two minutes of silence, he added.

"Government should immediately call joint session of the parliament to form a united strategy for the liberation of Kashmir from India," said Siraj. He added that Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised to be ambassador of Kashmir but he failed to keep his words. He said every government in the past seven decades just made hollow claims about Kashmir cause and practically did nothing for the people of the area who were under the yoke of Indian slavery since 1947.

Speaking on the occasion, Sardar Masood said the United Nations (UN) failed to play due role on Kashmir issue, hence, AJK and Pakistan who had to ultimately fight for the cause.

He appreciated the role of the JI for highlighting the Kashmir cause. The Indian occupation army, he said, had killed hundreds of young men, incarcerated thousands of boys and children and forcibly disappeared Kashmiris. All pro-freedom leaders were under Illegal detention. Concentration camps had been set up in the IIOJK and India to force political activists to discard their quest for liberty. The occupied territory's economy had also been ruined, he added.

He said late last year, illicitly, India bifurcated the disputed territory into two parts and declared that they would be ruled by Delhi, without the consent of the people of the valley.

In another sinister move this year, India launched massive import and transfer of Hindus from India to settle them in the occupied territory in order to change the demographic composition of the state. This was a flagrant violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and the international law, the AJK president stated.

Khan said the scale at which these atrocities were going on had been rightly called genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kashmiris were being exterminated; they were being made aliens in their own land, homeless in their own homeland.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020