J&K has never been part of India, nor will it be: Pakistan responds at UN

• Pakistani Counsellor said that Jammu and Kashmir has never been a part of India.
• India suppressed the Kashmiri demand for right to self-determination and freedom.
• She said India’s crimes and human rights violations are well-documented.

NEW YORK: Pakistani Counsellor to the United Nations Saima Saleem has categorically said that Jammu and Kashmir has never been a part of India and nor it will be.

She stated this in a right of reply to India during the General Debate of High-Level Week of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly. Saima Saleem said the final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir will be determined by its people through an UN-supervised plebiscite as per UN Security Council’s resolutions.

She said India accepted the UN Security Council resolutions and is obliged to implement them under Article 25 of the UN Charter but has failed to do so through fraud and force.

The Counsellor said instead India has sought to suppress the Kashmiri demand for their right to self-determination and freedom by imposing a cruel occupation. She said since 1989, over a hundred thousand Kashmiris have been killed.

Saima Saleem recalled that on 5 August 2019, India gave up all pretense and announced the annexation of Jammu and Kashmir. It enlarged its occupation army to 900,000, imposed a complete “lockdown”, turning the beautiful valley into the largest open-air prison in the world.

The entire Kashmiri population is the victim of India’s brutal tactics, she added. She further said that information blackout has been imposed by closing media houses and charging independent journalists with terrorism.

The counsellor said despite the worst kind of oppression the Kashmiris are facing, they have not given up the demand for freedom from Indian rule. She said India may forcibly occupy the land of Kashmir but it has lost its people forever.

Saima Saleem the second lie is India’s attempts to describe the Kashmiri freedom struggle as terrorism, calling it a colonial ploy. “Under international law, the Kashmiri resistance to foreign occupation is just and legal. It is India’s oppression that is illegal. It is India which must be held accountable for its war crimes and human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” she said.

The Counsellor referred to two reports from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that have documented these crimes and violations.  “Over a dozen Special Rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council have called for the investigation of the human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. India has consistently denied them access to the occupied territory,” she added.

She said the third Indian lie is to portray itself as a victim of terrorism. On the contrary, India is a serial sponsor of terrorism. It has perpetrated terrorism against each one of its immediate neighbours. Now, India’s terrorist franchise has gone global, she added.

Saima Saleem stressed that Pakistan has solid evidence of Indian sponsorship of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which has carried out repeated terrorist attacks against Pakistani civilians and military targets.

“The BLA is also financed and operated by India. The captured Indian spy, Naval Commander Kulbhushan Yadav, has fully enumerated India’s terrorist activities in his confession. India must be held accountable for its terrorist activities.”

Highlighting the plight of the minorities living in India, Saima Saleem said the BJP-RSS government is guilty of imposing a reign of terror, not only against innocent Kashmiris, but also its own 200 million Muslims, two million Christians and millions of Dalits and other lower caste Hindus. India’s crimes are well-documented.

She said 525 attacks took place against Christians, including the recent inhuman massacre of Christians by Hindu tribes in North-East India in the first eight months of the current year. Since 2018, 100,000 cases of crimes were registered against Dalits. Thousands of Sikhs were killed at the Golden Temple in organized riots in 1984 and thereafter.

The Pakistani representative said that India will not halt these violations of human rights and international law until its sense of impunity is removed. She said the world must stop giving India a free pass for strategic reasons.

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