Press Release 04/08/2021
Event Organized by Islamabad Policy Research Institute
Indian Transgression in IIOJ&K: Post 5th August 2019 Development and Future Prospects
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that Pakistan’s efforts to highlight the dispute of Kashmir, especially after the atrocious steps by India of August 5, 2019, have made inroads and the world pressure is piling up on New Delhi. He said that “India today stands isolated, and for the first time has gone defensive.”
He was addressing an international seminar on Kashmir organised by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute. A “Factsheet on Kashmir 1947-2021” was unveiled on the occasion, which is the second edition of the primary document that catalogues the freedom struggle of Kashmiri brethren.
The foreign minister remarked that “it’s high time India should rescind its actions in Kashmir, and oblige with the United Nations resolutions in terms of right to self-determination.” He also pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to rally political parties in support of his August 5 action has fizzled out, and “there is unanimous consensus on both sides of the divide against the illegal annulment of Article 370 and 35-A.” He said Prime Minister Imran Khan is alive to the occasion, and the government will continue to “do all it can to support the Kashmiris.”
The seminar was also addressed by Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed and Mushaal Hussein Mullick, human rights activist; and was joined on webinar from London by Dr Serena Hussain, Associate Professor at Coventry University.
IPRI Acting President and Director Research Brig (retd) Raashid Wali Janjua pointed out the defiance perspective of India in Kashmir in utter disregard to civil and human rights, and said that IPRI’s “Kashmir Factsheet” is a handy reckoner of the illustrious struggle of an occupied nation.
Mushahid Hussain Syed observed that the RSS/BJP are trying to “transform the Nehruvian state”, and anti-Muslim agenda is part and parcel of its Hindutva doctrine. He also said that the Indian intelligence, RAW, has 87 training camps against Pakistan. The Senator and former information minister said that India has inevitably picked up a conflict with China after the August 5, 2019, illegal intrusion; and “now Beijing is part of the entire dispute with India.”
He came up with statistics to point out that since August 5, 2019, 15,000 people were arrested; 390 extra-judicial killings were reported; 3.8 million new domiciles issued to alter demography; 1.2 million people added in voters’ list in an attempt to show Kashmiris as a minority group; 213 days of internet blackout; loss of around $5.3 billion to the economy of Kashmir due to lockdown, and more than 39 children maimed/killed apart from 1,100 blinded by pellets.
Mushahid called upon to bring the RSS-BJP combine in the international court, in order to penalise it for gross human rights violations.
Mrs Mullick urged the world community to forcefully rally for the rights of Kashmiris, and observed that “economic annihilation and genocide is taking place at the moment.” The wife of incarcerated Kashmir leader, Yaseen Mullick, said that “abrogation of Article 370 will not only affect the Muslims but other communities in Jammu & Kashmir as well.” She urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set up a “legal cell” to frame cases against India on the international fora. She hoped that within a year something substantial should come out against India.
