A parliamentary panel on Thursday said that India must give right of 'self-determination' to Kashmiris, enshrined in UN resolutions accepted by both India and Pakistan. National Assembly's standing committee on Kashmir affairs, which met here with Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman in the chair, discussed the volatile situation in the Indian occupied Kashmir.
Fazl said that the Kashmir dispute is primarily the issue of self-determination which is a basic principle of the UN charter that has been applied countless times to the settlement of international disputes. He said that the applicability of the principle of self-determination to the specific case of Indian occupied Kashmir had been explicitly recognised by the United Nations and it was also upheld equally by both India and Pakistan when the Kashmir dispute was brought before the Security Council in 1948.
The committee expressed its deep anger over the deteriorating situation in the held valley. The members said that the human, political and legal realities of the dispute had become more accentuated with the passage of time. They maintained that no settlement of the Kashmir dispute would be long-lasting unless it was explicitly based on the principle of self-determination.
The members condemned the state terrorism, perpetrated by the Indian security forces. More than thirty Kashmiris have been killed recently and thousands of Kashmiri youth were put in jails by occupation forces. There is a media black out in the valley. News regarding high handedness of the Indian forces are not allowed to be printed.
The papers are not allowed to be published for days and, it published, not allowed to be distributed. Kashmiri leadership has been arrested and India is deploying additional units of army to crush the freedom movement in the Kashmir.
The committee expressed full support on behalf of the Pakistani nation to the Kashmiri people, waging a valiant struggle for their right of self-determination. Glowing tributes were paid to the brave Kashmiris especially the martyrs.
Meanwhile, the committee rejected the statement of British Prime Minister David Cameron's statement made during his recent tour to India, stressing that he should have taken notice of the reign of terror unleashed by India in the occupied Kashmir and that Britain should endeavour to resolve the Kashmir issue, which is her responsibility, as it is unfinished agenda of the partition of the sub-continent.
The committee also passed a resolution in support of the just struggle of Kashmiris. Top officials of Foreign Office, headed by acting foreign secretary Muhammad Haroon Shaukat gave a detailed briefing to the committee. The members who attended the meeting include Nawab Muhammad Yusuf Talpur, Mir, Naseer Bhutta, Sheikh Aftab Ahmad, Engineer Khurram Dastagir Khan, Fiza Junejo, Bushra Gohar and Munir Khan Orakzai.