F.P. Report
MIRPUR: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has called upon the international community to help de-escalate tension between India and Pakistan and resolve the Kashmir issue, the root cause of their conflict.
Talking to a section of foreign press against the backdrop of tensions triggered by the Pulwama attack in the Indian occupied Kashmir last month, Sardar Masood suggested that a war between India and Pakistan must be avoided by helping both the countries to resolve the underlying conflict of Jammu and Kashmir.
According to an press release issued by the AJK Presidential Secretariat on Sunday, he said,”The root cause of the Kashmir issue is the denial of the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people.”
War-mongering was not in the best interest of India or Pakistan, he added.
“Whenever there’s a crisis such as this, we go to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). It is routine, particularly when there are threats from India. It’s the UNSC’s responsibility to maintain peace. That’s the first destination of any country when there’s a threat to peace and security,” the AJK President stated.
He said the international community should step forward, broker peace and prevent a war, it was the least they could do. Both India and Pakistan, he said, were nuclear armed and any small-scale conflicts could potentially escalate to the nuclear threshold, which had to be averted at all costs.
When asked about his views on the rising tension between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama attack, Masood Khan said India was playing with fire. India, he said, was brutalizing the people of Kashmir and the Pulwama incident was being used to demonise them and project them as violent extremists, which they were not.
He said India was trying to blame Pakistan without any shred of evidence. “If India is truthful, we are ready for an international investigation, provided that the investigation should not stop at the Pulwama incident and it should also investigate the brutal killings of Kashmiris.
“The remit of the investigation should also include those killings. Those which have taken place in the last 71 years where there has been excessive use of force. Women have been raped and molested.”
The AJK President said about 6,000 innocent Kashmiris had been blinded, either partially or fully, by the use of the pellet-firing shotgun.
He said,”The problem is that India uses two laws – the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) – which empower the occupation forces and fosters a culture of impunity.”
Those laws, he said, had been called lawless laws by the Amnesty International and “what we are saying is that India is a country which won its independence after a long struggle against British imperialism and now it should not treat Kashmir as a colony.”
Replying to a question about restrictions imposed by India on trade and travel between Azad Kashmir and Indian occupied Kashmir, President Masood said, “In fact, Kashmiris have been demanding that there should be boycott, divestment and sanctions against India to hold it responsible for human rights violations. India is now acting as the judge, jury and executioner, saying ‘you are the bad guys and we will impose trade sanctions against you’.”
He, however, said the trade between the two parts of Kashmir was important beyond just commercial interests. “Trade is a part of the confidence building measures that we built a decade ago and we, in fact, use the bus service to connect divided families from both sides.”
He expressed the hope that the suspended trade and travel service would be revived.
“What’s really worrying for India, for Pakistan and the people of Kashmir,” he said, was that ruling party in India, the Bhartiya Janata Party which had whipped up the xenophobic, racist and intolerant frenzy.
“They think that using this logic of Hindu majoritarianism they can marginalise Muslims in India, penalize Kashmiris and isolate Pakistan. They’re doing this for electoral gains.”
To another question about the reaction of AJK people over Indian war threats, the President said the people were angry over provocative statements coming out from India. There was a resolve among the people that the government should retaliate if India undertook any misadventure. “We hope that sanity prevails and India steps back lest the situation spins out of control,” he added.
Arguing about the indigenous character of Kashmir uprising, Sardar Masood Khan said the unbridled state terrorism against Kashmiris had led to young men – mostly educated teens – dropping out of schools and joining the freedom struggle which was not inspired from across the border as now they had their own ideological footprint.
Most of the young campaigners for freedom in Kashmir right now were not militants at all, he said. “They take pride in the fact that this is an indigenous movement and that they are the leaders of this movement.”
