Pakistan High Commissioner to Nigeria, Major General Muhammad Tayyab Azam, Rtd, has called on the United Nations and other world bodies to urgently respond to the ongoing human rights abuses by the Indian military in Kashmir.”
The envoy made this call in an interview with Vanguard yesterday in commemoration of the Kashmir Day in Abuja and said that Kashmir is boiling since August 2019 and has been under siege by the Indian military.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts. Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars — in 1948, 1965, and 1971 — two of them over Kashmir.
Some Kashmiri groups in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against the Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.
According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.
Tensions have escalated between the countries many times in the past and have sometimes resulted in military confrontation.
Kashmiris are an Indigenous people living under colonial occupation who have been fighting for their right to practice sovereignty through self-determination and self-government. Multiple colonial borders run through the Kashmiri peoples’ territories (Indian, Pakistani and Chinese), separating families and friends.
Kashmir is the most militarized region in the world, with more than half a million-armed Indian troops deployed in the Indian-administered Kashmir over the past 30 years.
The ambassador said since 2019 people are not even allowed to come out of their houses, there are no schools, there are no businesses, or any other normal daily activity going on in Kashmir.
“For every Kashmiri there are six to seven soldiers in the valley laying siege. If you look back into history, you don’t even find this kind of thing in Germany under fascist regime.
Kashmir is bleeding, Kashmir is burning, and the people are not realizing the seriousness of this issue. Which is of course an issue between two nuclear nations. It is a nuclear flash point, if the issue is allowed to go out of hand, it will affect the whole world. Then it would not be a regional issue.
He said the problem of nationality and allegiance in Kashmir is not a political issue. “Whenever elections are going on in India, they would start problems in Kashmir and peoples’ attention are diverted to the internal crisis. That is Indian political dynamics, in the overall political dynamics, when they are violating the human rights of Kashmiri, they use pellet guns to make the people blind. How many times have the Pakistan authorities demanded that this issue need to be settled?
“We have not played politics with that, our demand has always been that the people be allowed to decide their fate in line with UN resolutions. Those on our side are not complaining, but those on the side of India don’t want to stay with them and they have the right to self determination. India should allow them to exercise that right freely,” he said.
“Indian said that there will be no third party mediation on the issue. India is insisting that the issue is bilateral, but it is not a bilateral issue, it is an international issue. This is an issue between two nuclear states.
“If the Kashmiri are interested in staying with India, they will have no reason to turn the area to a police state and deny everybody access to the area. They blame Pakistan for inciting Kashmiri people, but the truth is that these people are armless, they only use pallets to defend themselves against brutality and force of Indian soldiers.
“There is a need for a third party to mediate between the two sides in this conflict. Because they cannot be judges over their own cases, that is not logical. India is tactically killing the young people in the area with the sole intention of changing the demographic of the area. They are empowering the Hindu community to buy land and establish businesses in the area,” he said.
He added that the war in Kashmir is a serious concern and the options are very serious and very grave.
“We are a small country compared to India. You see that Kashmir shares a border with China also and we are all concerned. They cannot revoke the UN resolution because that would amount to changing the status of Kashmir and it is a violation of international legal instruments.
“That is why we commemorate Kashmir day every February 5, to highlight these things and draw global attention to it. These kinds of atrocities should not be happening in 21th Century. If the UN is unable to resolve this issue, then who,” he asked?
