Daily Times

To, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

Dear Excellency,

On the anniversary of the historic day of July 19, 1947, we, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, through this memorandum bring to your kind notice how on this day, the working committee of the sole representative party, All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference of the Prajha Sabha (State Assembly), under the leadership of Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan–later the founding president of Azad (Free) Kashmir–had passed a resolution of the accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan.

This resolution represented the popular will of the population of the Jammu and Kashmir state as well as the geographical proximity, which supported the accession to Pakistan.

India’s aggressive attitude and false claim to the state’s accession brought two newly formed states, India and Pakistan, to war. Later India carried the matter to the UN. After hearing Indian and Pakistani representatives, the UN Security Council passed several resolutions, most notably Resolution No. 47 of April 21, 1948, asking India and Pakistan to hold a plebiscite in the state of J&K to determine the aspirations of the people.

Unfortunately, this plebiscite has not taken place to date. Instead, India has been involved in severe human rights abuses in the occupied region and has perpetrated heinous crimes, including unlawful detentions, murders, rapes, killings of educated youth, damages to the property and politically motivated arrests. The Indian occupational army has used one of the most dangerous weapons “pellet guns” in the recent past.

As many as 1,253 people have been blinded by the metal pellets used by security forces from mid-2016 to the end of 2018. Recent reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued on June 14, 2018, and July 8, 2019, respectively, are a testament to the human rights abuses of the occupational Indian forces.

Sir, the people of Kashmir have been enduring these human rights abuses in a hope to exercise their right to self-determination one day as per UN Charter and the resolutions passed by Security Council on the Kashmir conflict. It is also worth mentioning that it is the only issue between two nuclear states, which is on the active agenda of the UN and, thus, needs immediate attention.

On behalf of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, we demand your good office to immediately initiate investigations against Indian atrocities in the occupied region. The area should be strictly monitored so that further losses of lives and property are saved. Furthermore, we appreciate the UN’s step of publishing reports on the human rights abuses in the region and appeal to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to regularly watch and publish the updated situation on human rights abuses, so that India could be made accountable. Significantly, we demand that the UN makes grounds for arranging a plebiscite in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as per its resolutions. This is the only viable solution to the conflict of Jammu and Kashmir.

Regards,

People of Jammu and Kashmir

The author is a visiting faculty member at International Islamic University, Islamabad