Daily Times

The killing of Bashir Ahmed, a 65-year old man, in front of his three-year old grandson in Sopor district of occupied Kashmir exposes the savagery of the Indian forces and the real brutal face of India that proudly taunts its so-called ‘democratic credentials’. Extremely disturbing images of the innocent child sitting at the chest of his deceased grandfather have shook world conscience. The world awoke momentarily from the deep sleep outpouring strong condemnation of this Indian atrocity.

In India, voices were also raised over brutality of the Indian forces in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Rajdeep Sardesai, a level-headed Indian journalist, in his talk show on ‘India Today’, revealed that the Indian police pulled out the elderly innocent civilian from his vehicle and mercilessly killed him. Sambit Patra, one of ruling BJP’s spokespersons, got infuriated as Rajdeep narrated the true story of the horrible incident getting from the field reporter. The BJP spokesperson blamed Rajdeep for having a soft corner for Pakistan and later, shamelessly tweeted that he doesn’t need reporters to tell him the facts as he blindly believes Indian army. This shows the mindset of the extremist BJP that doesn’t believe in logic or rationale but intimidation and bullying.

The family of the deceased has said that the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) pulled him out from his vehicle and shot him dead in front of his toddler grandson. Later, the toddler was seen in a video recounting the tragic incident. Much hue and cry are made in the West when a few stray rockets from the Palestinians land in Israel. The western media talk about the traumatization of Israeli children. Will someone in the West and the US take notice of the situation of Kashmiri children traumatized by Indian occupied forces?

The UN has, at least, 10 resolutions on Kashmir where it has pledged a plebiscite or asked India to withdraw its forces. In a broadcast on November 2, 1947, then Indian prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru announced that the fate of Kashmir would ultimately be decided by the people, once law and order was established, through a referendum “held under international auspices like the United Nations”. Would the UN ever come forward to force countries like India or Israel implement its resolutions or is it fully dead? Would India show some moral courage to respect international law and to abide by promises of her past leaders?

India has literally turned the Kashmir valley into a jail. It has almost been a year since it revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir by repealing article 370 and 35A. It has imposed a lockdown and communication blackout in a bid to cut the valley from rest of the world. The basic human rights of the Kashmiris have been suspended. Due to lockdown, people have been stranded inside their houses. Freedom of expression and the right to free speech has been curbed. Kashmiris can’t practice their religion as the places of worship have been forcibly closed down way before covid-19 crisis. The Kashmiris have been deprived of their basic right to get education as education institutions were closed down.

India has literally turned the Kashmir valley into a jail

For decades, Kashmiris had rights to education, jobs and land enshrined within article 35A. The semi-autonomous status was changed in August 2019 when the BJP-led central government revoked the region’s special status, without any direct input from Kashmiris. The BJP central government went further in March, introducing laws that allowed outsiders to get permanent residence in the newly-designated Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The special status of the Jammu & Kashmir was the major impediment for extremist BJP’s plans of altering the state demography. Article 35A of the Indian constitution empowered the Jammu and Kashmir state’s legislature to define “permanent residents” of the state and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents. The state of Jammu and Kashmir defined these privileges to include the ability to purchase land and immovable property, ability to vote and contest elections, seeking government employment and availing other state benefits such as higher education and health care. Non-permanent residents of the state, even if Indian citizens, were not entitled to these ‘privileges’.

So, as a first step, the Modi government repealed article 370 and 35A to revoke special status of Jammu & Kashmir declaring it a union territory. With this, non-permanent residents were granted rights to purchase lands, immovable property or seek higher education on special quota earlier allocated to Kashmiris. In a bid to systematically shift demographic balance against indigenous Kashmiri Muslims, Modi government has just recently granted Jammu & Kashmir domicile certificates to 25000 outsiders.

In my recent piece titled ‘Indian hegemony and South Asia’, I pointed out that India is following the Israeli model in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Issuing of domicile certificates is one more manifestation of Indian plan to usurp more rights of indigenous Kashmiris.

Indian has brutally killed dozens of innocent Kashmiris during the past few months. According to media reports, Indian forces have killed at least 54 Kashmiris and injured 29 others. Those who resist Indian brutality and state terrorism are not only killed but their homes are also demolished in a bid to punish the entire family. Indian has resort to such savagery in occupied Kashmir where it feels no shame to deprive families of the deceased freedom fighters from performing last rituals of their loved ones or let them bury in their own graveyard. Families of Slain fighters have to endure immense grief and pain as Indian authorities in occupied Kashmir bury bodies at distant unmarked graves.

Women and children in occupied Kashmir face horrible conditions as they are tortured, molested and killed by occupied forces. Indian forces conduct massive search and cordon operations where the entire population is kept under the lockdown in their houses for several days. During house to house search, brutal Indian forces disrespect women and torture children. If such atrocities have taken place somewhere else in the world, there would be a firestorm in international media. But on Kashmir, the champions of human rights have chosen to turn a blind eye.

Unfortunately, very few voices from international community are raised to support Kashmiris. The UN failure to resolve long-standing disputes like Kashmir and Palestine has raised questions over the effectiveness and the very existence of this international body.

The BJP central government of Modi has been acting on a well-thought-out plan to change demography of the Muslim majority Jammu & Kashmir to deprive Kashmiris of their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination. The world community, specially the UN security council should come up, stop India from perpetrating atrocities in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and fulfill its obligation by holding a free and fair plebiscite to allow Kashmiris decided their fate.

The writer is a journalist & analyst working at the International Desk of a news channel