Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan and AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan met on Sunday to take stock of the deteriorating situation in Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK) and strongly condemned the provocative statements given by the Indian government and the Indian army chief, who are working in collusion to brutalise and suppress the Kashmiri people. The AJK president said that Indian occupation forces had turned IHK into a war zone where unarmed, non-combatant civilians were being mowed down in the wicked and barbaric cordon and search operations. The latest victim of these operations is a youth in Bandipora. India, he said, is meting out this collective punishment on the Kashmiri population because of their demand for freedom, justice and self-determination, which is their birthright. When the peaceful people of Kashmir demand a just, political and negotiated settlement of the internationally recognised Kashmir dispute, India retaliates by killing Kashmiri youth, blinding them by use of pellet guns, arbitrarily arresting and then torturing Kashmiris and abducting them and destroying their houses and means of livelihood. The AJK president said that India’s rejection of a mutually agreed meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session, was driven by strong resistance from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Hindu extremists. He said that such offers, made in good faith by Pakistan now and in the past, underline Pakistan’s commitment to dialogue and diplomacy in the quest for all avenues for a lasting solution of the IHK dispute, whereas India wants to resolve this issue through the use of state terrorism and brutal force against Kashmiris. “Kashmiris want peace and peaceful means to resolve the dispute,” he said. India, he said, wants to plunge the region into warmongering and brinkmanship to divert attention from its horrendous human rights violations in IHK and to bide time to avert a lasting resolution of the Kashmir dispute. “Our worst apprehension is that India is deliberately making offensive and inflammatory statements to intensify its repression in Kashmir,” AJK President Sardar Masood Khan said. Both the president and the prime minister of AJK endorsed the three recommendations of the UN Human Rights Commission’s report: a) India to respect the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people, b) repeal of the two draconian laws – Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act that empowers Indian security forces to commit human rights violations with impunity and c) Human Rights Council to constitute a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in IHK. They also discussed ways and means to intensify political and diplomatic campaigns for the self-determination of the Kashmiris and an end to the Indian repression in the occupied territory. The AJK PM informed Sardar Masood Khan that a commission for overseas Kashmiris has been established which would work to address the grievances of overseas Azad Kashmiris and give them incentives to invest in AJK. Published in Daily Times, September 24th 2018.