Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A legislative body of Upper House of Parliament on Wednesday adopted a declaration condemning the reprehensible and blatant use of force by Indian occupation forces against innocent Kashmiris, whose only demand is the realisation of the right to self-determination.

The committee also called upon the United Nations to implement its resolutions on the Jammu & Kashmir dispute.

The committee also condemned the killing, arbitrary detention, use of pellet guns, torture, enforced disappearances, restriction on freedom of expression by reprisals against human rights activists, rape and sexual violence in Indian-Held Kashmir.

The condemnation was done in Senate Standing Committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan on Wednesday while Senator Professor Sajid Mir was chair.

The urgent and single agenda meeting was held on Wednesday in parliament house and was attended among others by Leader of the House Senator Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq, Senators Lieutenant General (r) Salahuddin Tirmzi, Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qayyum, Abdur Rahman Malik, Caretaker Minister for Kashmir Affairs & Gilgit Baltistan, Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua, Convener of All Parties Huriyat Conference in AJ&K and Pakistan Ghulam Muhammad Safi, Abdul Majeed Malik, and other representatives from Kashmir.

The committee members, Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Kashmiri leaders jointly called upon the UN High Commissioner to send a Commission of Inquiry to IHK, immediately considering the increasing intensity of violence and use of force against the Kashmiri people and underscored the indigenous nature of the Kashmiri struggle in IHK.

Ghulam Muhammad Safi while outlining the Kashimiri movement observed that Kashmiris do not want just any solution to the issue but a durable and just resolution that was representative of aspirations of Kashmiri people. He said that Kashmir was not willing to sit with India alone and wanted a tri-party dialogue table where Pakistan, Kashmir and India were present. He said that Kashimiris would never be influenced because of the economic packages Indian government provides and nothing less than the right to self-determination was acceptable.

Foreign Secretary while briefing the committee said that intensity of Indian atrocities had been on an increase and Indian government seeing the huge population that attends funerals of martyrs had prepared a list of 22 Kashmiri activists that it intended to martyr and has announced that their bodies would not be given to their families so that there were no mass funerals.

Senator Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq, on whose initiative the meeting was called, remarked that India had been trying its best to hide its atrocities from the world by not allowing any observer mission of Human Rights team to visit IHK but it had failed miserable in containing the movement that is gaining momentum every passing day. He observed that publication of the recent report of the UN Council on Human Rights had also exposed Indian propaganda and has shown its real face.

The meeting agreed that there was a need to present a strong narrative of Pakistan and Kashmir to counter the false propaganda being spread by India calling the Kashmiri movement a form of militancy instead of a liberation movement. The participants in the meeting agreed that for a stronger Kashmiri cause, a strong and sovereign Pakistan was a basic requirement. The Committee called upon political parties to include Kashmiri cause as a part of election manifesto, having Kashmir desks in major countries, making lobbying effective and more engagement at political and diplomatic level.

Published in Daily Times, June 28^th 2018.