Islamabad, July 30, 2020 (PPI-OT): The Acting Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar has urged the world leaders to take effective notice of India’s colonialism drive intended to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers in occupied Kashmir.
Mehmood Ahmed Saghar in a joint communiqué addressed to the leaders of P5 countries and the UN chief, Mr Antonio Guterres, said the events unfolding in the disputed territory reflect settler-colonialism policies of the Indian state, which, he added, violate the sanctity of the UN resolutions on Kashmir.
Referring to 5th August 2019 move by the Indian state, he said that the contentious move was an act of aggression and an outrageous assault on the rights of the people of the territory, who, he said, had been time and again pushed into throes of instability and perpetual violence by India.
“Stripping the territory of its autonomous status by revoking Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution last year was a deep-rooted conspiracy to erase the Kashmiris’ political, cultural and national identity”, the communiqué said, adding that the attempted annexation of Kashmir had pushed the region into a quagmire of uncertainty. Caught between conflict and the coronavirus, the joint communiqué noted that a population of nearly 8 million people had been under virtual siege for the past one year.
“While the world governments are hectically engaged in combating the coronavirus pandemic the Indian government has remorselessly used the COVID-19 situation as an opportunity to extend its colonial agenda in the restive region by enforcing a set of new laws that go against the rights and interests of the indigenous population”, the communiqué said.
Referring to India’s nefarious designs the communiqué further said, “To wipe out the state’s homogeneous character New Delhi has now started an inclusive settler-colonialism drive under the garb of new domicile law to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers”.
“With the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution, which had restricted land ownership to Kashmiri state subjects, a series of new laws were enforced in the territory that besides opening floodgates for Indian settlers will enable them to have more capital to take over Kashmiri lands”, the communiqué said.
Mehmood Ahmed Saghar pointed out the Indian government has now come up with another dangerous plan that gives sweeping powers to the Indian army to acquire more land in Kashmir. The motive behind this move, he said, was to establish settlements in the so-called strategic areas to house the Indian citizens thereafter granting them citizenship under the new domicile laws.
He said, the amendments to the law will expedite the process of demographic changes in the occupied territory. “Along with land grab, capitalist accumulation and resource extraction there are other dangerous aspects of settler-colonial state formations, which pose a serious existential threat to Kashmiris”, Saghar said, adding that apart from these tactical moves the wanton killings of youth, systematic genocide and policy of dehumanization of indigenous people on the other hand depict terrifying and dark aspects of the Indian military occupation.
He urged the world leaders to stop India from changing demography in the disputed territory. “Kashmir remains to be the core issue that needs to be resolved for the sake of durable peace and stability in the region,” he maintained.
Urging p5 countries to take serious notice of the fast deteriorating political and human rights situation in the region, Mehmood Ahmed Saghar said that influential world governments must develop pressure on the government of India to reverse these actions, which, he said, were in open contravention of the UN resolutions prohibiting the parties concerned from taking any unilateral action aimed at changing the disputed nature of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
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