Pak UN envoy urges OIC to push for ending India’s atrocities in Kashmir

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram has underscored the need for the world community to end India’s human rights violations in illegally occupied Kashmir and move to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions and Kashmiri people’s wishes.

Briefing Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members in a virtual meeting on the situation in the disputed state on Thursday, he said: “We, first and foremost, rely on our Muslim brothers and sisters from OIC to uphold the right of self-determination of Kashmiri people.”

Ambassador Akram told OIC members that by removing Article 35 of its Constitution and changing the domicile “regulations” in illegally occupied Kashmir, India had opened the door to demographic transformation.

“More than 400,000 Indian military and civilian officials and their families have already obtained residency rights in Kashmir,” he said, adding: “This ‘demographic flooding’ of an occupied territory violates Security Council resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention.”

To add insult to injury, he said on the anniversary of India’s illegal measures in Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the construction of a Hindu temple on the Ayodhya site of the historic Babri Mosque which was illegally destroyed by the same BJP-RSS fanatics who had been given the right to construct the temple.

To justify its crimes in Kashmir, Akram said, the rulers in New Delhi had borrowed from the colonial playbook by portraying the Kashmiri resistance as “terrorism”, adding: “The legitimacy of the indigenous Kashmiri struggle for self-determination is recognised by international law and relevant UN resolutions.”

In response to Indian allegations of “infiltration”, he said Pakistan had offered to have the UN Observers stationed in Jammu and Kashmir verify all such allegations, but India did not respond.

The Pakistani envoy said there was good reason for concern as under domestic pressure resulting from its failed strategy in Kashmir and mismanagement of the economy and the Covid-19 response, the Indian government may seek to divert attention by resorting to another military adventure against Pakistan, perhaps after staging a “false flag” terrorist incident.

Ambassador Akram said Pakistan did not want war with India, but he warned “we will respond with all our capabilities to any Indian aggression”. He said a war between nuclear armed states should not even be contemplated.

“We are happy that the Security Council met for the third time (in a year) on Wednesday (August 5) on the first anniversary of India’s unilateral actions in Kashmir,” he said, pointing out that the meeting took place while Modi was launching Hindu temple on the site of Babri Mosque.

A number of representatives of OIC member states took the floor to voice their concern over the situation in Kashmir.

Saudi Arabia’s Khaled Mohammed Almanzlawiy reiterated Riyadh’s support for resolution of Jammu and Kashmir dispute in line with the United Nations Security Council and OIC resolutions. Emphasising the importance of dialogue, he called for an immediate halt to all human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.