Srinagar : In occupied Kashmir, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik has said that resolution of Kashmir dispute is a pre-requisite for lasting peace in South Asia.
Muhammad Yasin Malik said this in his video speech played at an International Parliamentary Seminar on Kashmir organized in Islamabad by the Young Parliamentarians’ Forum (YPF) of the National Assembly of Pakistan.
He said that the five month long mass uprising was crushed by an unbridled use of force by Indian authorities. The Indian Central Reserve Police Force admitted to firing some 1.3 million pellets in the first month of the uprising, which resulted in a plague of dead and damaged eyes, he added. He said that doctors in the territory estimated the total number of eye injuries caused by the pellets in the first four months of the uprising to be 1,178.
The JKLF Chairman said that over 100 people had been shot dead, around 15,000 youth injured and roughly 10,000 youth arrested, mostly beaten and tortured in detention centres. The families of peaceful protesters have been harassed by Indian forces’ personnel, who in day and night raids destructed their property, ranging from destructing window panes, doors, laptops, motorbikes, cars or whatever came their way.
Yasin Malik said, the democracies like India not only maim and kill people but also indulge in blackmailing. They punish the families and relatives of dissidents to force them into submission. He said that the mass uprising of 2008 to 2010 was crushed by massive military force and the story of the 2016 Intifada had seen history repeating itself.
He said a poor country like India is spending 40 billion dollars on its military annually. “A smaller economy of Pakistan has an annual defence budget of over 8 billion dollars. The defense budgets of the two countries continue experiencing a regular increase annually,†he deplored.
The JKLF Chief said that a just and lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute would usher in an enduring peace in South Asia. It would not only put an end to the suffering of Kashmiris but also help unlock the massive economic potential of South Asia, with a population that roughly adds up as one fourth of the world’s total population, he added.
He also thanked the Young Parliamentarians Forum of Pakistan for inviting him in the seminar.