The International community especially the United States must
take notice of the gross Human Rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir
(IOK) and serious efforts must be made to find a lasting solution to the Jammu
and Kashmir dispute, says a press release received here
today from Washington DC.
President of Azad
Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Masood Khan made these remarks while speaking to South
Asia experts at the Middle East Institute today.
The Middle East
Institute is a leading think tank in Washington DC that had invited President
Masood Khan to speak on the current dynamics of the Kashmir dispute.
In his remarks,
President Masood Khan informed the experts that India's vicious policy of
unleashing state coercion on innocent Kashmiris bordered on crimes against
humanity. Political expediency and mercantilism must not hold back responsible
powers from their moral, political and legal obligation of responding to the
well recorded and widely reported incidents of massive violations of human
rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), he emphasized.
India, the
President said, was not only responsible for tormenting the lives of Kashmiris
through acts of killing and torture but it was also blackmailing key western
nations on the basis of its so-called strategic and economic leverages.
Ignoring Indian atrocities would amount to acquiescing to its policy of state
coercion as regularly displayed through brutalities perpetrated against the
people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). India had also misled the world
by framing the Kashmir issue in the context of terrorism.
There was no
terrorism in Kashmir, the President said. He highlighted that the predominant
reality in Indian Occupied Kashmir was mass killing of the innocent people.
President Masood Khan further stated that the Human Rights violations being perpetrated against the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) must not be seen through the prism of regional politics. Besides India and Pakistan, the people of Kashmir were an indispensable stakeholder in any decision on their future. He added that the United Nations carried the solemn responsibility of implementing the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir.
President Masood
Khan pointed out that in addition to the coercive state machinery, political
forces backed by the ruling party were also terrorizing the Kashmiris. In this
regard, he pointed out that Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was planning to create a mass exodus of
Muslims from Jammu for achieving a favorable demographic outlay in the area,
along the lines of the genocide of 237,000 Muslims in 1947.
However, the
people of Kashmir will never compromise on their political aspirations,
President Masood Khan reaffirmed.
