Daily Times

LONDON: British members of Parliament (MPs) and other speakers here at a seminar on Tuesday night asked India to stop genocide, gross human right violations, and atrocities on the defenceless people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOK) and give them their inalienable right of self-determination.

An overwhelming support and solidarity with the Kashmiri people was witnessed among the audience of the seminar on ‘Kashmir Human Rights’ organized by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Third World Solidarity here at the British Parliament.

Dave Anderson Chairman, Lit Twist MP, Victoria Schofield, Lord Qurban Hussain of Luton, Kumar Sarkar (Indian), Ahlam Akram, Habib Jan, Anis Nasir and Mushtaq Lasharie spoke on the occasion.

Attendees from many communities across the United Kingdom included in APPG on the Third world Solidarity on Kashmir Angela Rayner MP, Tony Llord MP, Ian Murray MP, Sam Terry MP, Tan Deshi MP, Kevin Hollinrake MP, Bob Blackman MP, Barry Gardiner MP, David Amess MP, Kumar Sarkar, an Indian Hindu, Saundra Satterlee journalist from the United States, Ahlam Akram Palestanian, Councillor (Cllr) Rita Begum, Murad Qureshi, member of GLA from Bangladesh, Prof Victoria Goddard Argentinian, Julie Fox French, Dr Kathey Saugy Argentanian academemics, Ruaidri O Donnel Adviser to Tony Lloyd MP on Ireland, Christopher MCHugh and many other British Pakistanis and Kashmiris, and human rights activists.

The speakers urged India to end lockdown and siege of the Kashmiri people, who had been demanding their right to self-determination, which was promised by the United Nations to them about seven decades ago.

Lord Qurban, who belongs to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), said the Indian government, under its Armed Forces Special Act, had given a licence to its occupation forces to arrest and kill the people of IOJK.

The honour of women in Indian occupied Kashmir was not safe as thousands of them had been raped by the occupation troops, he said, adding even young boys of below 12 years of age were picked up from their houses and next day their dead bodies were thrown out.

Most of the women in the IOJK were half widows as the whereabouts of their husbands, who were picked up by occupation forces, were not known, he added.

Lord Qurban said some 30,000 Kashmiri people had been put behind the bar. Freedom movement leader Shabbir Shah had been in prison for the past 25 years.

He said Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party government, which was pursuing the fascist and extremist ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had made the lives of Muslims and other minorities across India and occupied Kashmir miserable.

He said India’s move to abrogate Articles 35A and 370 of the constitution was illegal which was aimed at changing the demographic composition of the IOJK and making the indigenous Muslim population a minority in their homeland.

He demanded the international community, including UK, to pressurize India for allowing human rights organizations to visit the IOJK for ascertaining on the ground rights abuses there. There was no restriction for such organizations to visit the Azad Jammu and Kashmir, he added.

Chairman of Third World Solidarity Mushtaq Lasharie called for the implementation of the UN resolutions on Kashmir. He asked the participants to write letters to the UK government for putting pressure on the Indian government to stop atrocities on the eight million Kashmiris, who had been under siege for the last five months. He questioned that if the UN Security Council resolutions had been implemented on Iraq then why not the same could be done in case of Kashmir.

Victoria Schofield said due to the complete lockdown, the people of Indian held Kashmir were facing a shortage of food and medicines while the students were unable to attend their educational institutions.

Kumar Sarkar strongly criticized the BJP government policies based on the fascist Hindu ideology of caste system, which was total negation of liberal policies of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.