KOTLI: Sardar Masood Khan, President Azad Jammu Kashmir said in a statement issued here on the eve of the Right to Self-Determination Day for Kashmiris that the people of Kashmir have the sole right to determine their political destiny in light of the resolution passed on 5th January 1949 at the United Nations Security Council.
The President said that today the people of Pakistan, AJK and Indian Occupied Kashmir renew their pledge to amicably resolve this dispute in the spirit of the democratic and peaceful solution presented by the United Nations in its resolution. The peaceful people of Kashmir are determined for the harmonious resolution of this dispute, he added.
The people of Kashmir, he said are not begging for their freedom but they are asking for their just right to self-determination, which is a fundamental right enshrined in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter.
President Masood Khan said that India has always been reluctant in carrying out the requisite conditions laid down in the UNSC resolutions for conducting a peaceful plebiscite in IOK, and instead has resorted to coercive methods to suppress the freedom struggle of the innocent Kashmiris.
President Masood Khan said that India has made Kashmiris pariahs in their own homeland. President AJK said that human right violations committed by the Indian Occupation forces constitute war crimes and are synonymous with ethnic genocide. Delhi has always installed a puppet government in IOK through orchestrated elections which is in flagrant violation of international conventions and laws.
He further added that Indian forces under the patronage of the central government are torturing the local population in IOK by murdering peaceful Kashmiris, harassing the Hurriyat leadership, using lethal pellet guns, transforming the demography of Muslim populated areas, illegally incarcerating innocent protestors and dishonoring the womenfolk.
Regretting the inattention of the international community, the President said that world powers must take notice of the gross human right violations taking place in IOK. He further added that the Kashmir issue has been overshadowed by realpolitik and the vested economic and strategic interests of the world nations.
The President urged the need to take the issue to the United Nations Security Council as the tall claims of bilateral talks by India have yielded no results. India through its malicious tactics has taken the Kashmir dispute to the back burners by refusing to engage in any constructive or concrete diplomatic and political dialogue on Kashmir, said Masood Khan. The resolution of this issue without the consent of the people of Kashmir is futile and India’s attempt to exclude them from the equation is nonsensical as the very people of Kashmir are the key stakeholders in the dispute, said the President.
President Masood Khan asserted that freedom of Kashmiris from India is inevitable and no means of intimidation will be able to inhibit the ongoing freedom struggle. The President on the occasion thanked the people, and government of Pakistan for their ardent diplomatic, political and moral support in the struggle of the Kashmiri people in attaining their undeniable right to self-determination.
