Daily Times

From a gross and systematic abuse of human rights in Kashmir (Indian occupied), Indian atrocities progressed into the use of pellet guns to maim and blind. India has turned to a new and very sinister policy of using the prisons to kill the Kashmiri leadership. Covid Pandemic provides the best cover to conceal the crime.

The death in the prison of senior Kashmiri leader Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat – a constituent of All Party Hurriyat Conference has shocked every human soul in and outside Kashmir. India and its satellite authority in Kashmir may have a reason to heave a sigh of relief – it has no grace and no future. Ashraf Sehrai was in the care of jail authorities and a failure in the duty to care, has accrued a criminal liability for ‘murder’.

People and the preparedness of the State apparatus, (which had collapsed in early 1990s) have left Hurriyat and Militant leadership far behind and there are little chances that the latter would be able to catch up. Even Pakistan which has bilateral and international agreements with India is struggling to find an anti-dote to the Indian action of 5 August 2019. If we leave India with its aggression of 5 August 2019 and allow it to consolidate its aggression it would mean an unpardonable wrong done to the State and people. India has offered sky as the limit and accepted to talk to these people outside the Indian constitution.

A running away from the stand that “accession to India was a death warrant” for the people of Kashmir and conceding on the ” rights and dignity” and “security and self-determination” of the people of Kashmir would bring the people of Kashmir into a direct conflict with Pakistan – something that has never happened from 1947 to date. Hurriyat and militant leadership shall have to account for the start of a physical challenge to the Indian rule and Government of Pakistan shall have to answer for her political, moral and diplomatic support.

We have supported Pakistani’s back-door engagement with India. But this does not mean that the people of Kashmir who have taken up arms and waged a people’s resistance against India at a high cost, should have an iota of reason to doubt that back-door contacts may end up into a betrayal for domestic compulsion or for feeling iniquitous to Indian politics and military

Indian position on Kashmir has been reiterated in their 22 February 1994 parliament Resolution. It claims that Azad Kashmir is part of India and is illegally occupied by Pakistan. India did not succeed to prosecute this stand on Azad Kashmir because it was faced with a political and a militant resistance in Kashmir.

India was challenged by a strong diaspora at the UN and around the world. Unfortunately things started going wrong at home (Indian occupied Kashmir, Azad Kashmir and Pakistan) and abroad. An examination in these columns would be inappropriate. The litmus test that things went terribly wrong is the Indian action of 5 August 2019 and our failure to even make an amoebic response.

We have supported Pakistani’s back-door engagement with India. It does not mean that people of Kashmir who have taken up arms and waged a people’s resistance against India at a high cost, should have an iota of reason to doubt that back-door contacts may end up into a betrayal for domestic compulsion or for feeling iniquitous to Indian politics and military. The militancy, politics and diplomatic war of Kashmiris since 1990 has been facing the same Indian military and politics and the people of Kashmir have not shown any fatigue.

There is no doubt that there was no synergy between Hurriyat, militancy, diaspora and the political, moral and diplomatic support of Pakistan. In fact we have been unkind to our people and at times have lied to them in regards to the character and seriousness of our interest

We have challenged the character of Indian occupation as it existed in January 1990. The character of Indian control has changed after it aggressed on 5 August 2019 and used its military to place the people under curfew and disconnect them from rest of the world. These people are cut off even from Pakistan, Azad Kashmir, GB and the diaspora. We have avoided to make concerted efforts to challenge and seek to vacate the Indian action of 5 August 2019. There are non-military options available.

Government of Azad Kashmir has avoided to take a position on the Indian action of 5 August 2019, on the WION conference of 5 March 2020 held in Dubai which declared that Indian action in Kashmir was an internal matter of India and on the latest use of prisons by Indian authorities as a tool to kill Kashmiri leadership? Statements, tweets and zoom conference are not a proportionate response. This is a misdirected approach to keep up a ‘busy bee’ appearance and has to fail. One such failure was the disappearance of “Kul Jamati Kashmir Rabita Committee” established at Birmingham United Kingdom.

Government of Azad Kashmir and the 12 members elected from the 2.5 million Kashmiri refugees have failed in their constitutional duties to the people living on both sides of cease fire line. There is a feeling that AJK Government wants the active diaspora to fail or at least keep it fractured for slow and part-time drum beating. Government of Azad Kashmir cannot continue with its policy of stirring up occasional situations with Islamabad and strike a quid pro quo. Death of Ashraf Sehrai has changed the rules of the game and Indian authorities have overrun the red line.

Pakistan would be engaging with a country which has colonised Kashmir, killed a generation and wronged the people and habitat beyond easy repair. How would Pakistan reconcile the engagement with India, a country which has trashed honour and dignity of man and woman in Kashmir? We hope that Pakistan is a different Pakistan in 2021 to what we find it in document III submitted to the UN on 15 January of 1948. In para 23 (i) Pakistan admits that it had proposed to India that in case “the forces of the Azad Kashmiris Government or the independent tribesmen engaged in the fighting … in that if they did not obey the order to cease fire immediately the forces of both Dominions (India and Pakistan ) would make war on them”.

Is there an immediate or a remote possibility that these secret back-door engagements might lead to the need to wage a joint war on every Kashmiri school of opinion, engaged in advocating the right of the people to self-determination? Both countries may seek to find out a compliant constituency on their respective sides and those who would refuse to fall in line may be marked for a harm. It remains to be seen.

Government of Azad Kashmir has abandoned the constitutional duty towards Indian occupied Kashmir and the right of self-determination. Keeping Indian occupied Kashmir in a flux helps the AJK Government to exact its pound of flesh from Islamabad. Individuals and institutions benefit from the continuation of misery inflicted by India on the defenceless people.

Azad Kashmir has remained a source of big earning for the Pakistani political parties. Peoples Party and MQM in particular had their front-men stationed in Muzaffarabad to steal the Kashmiri silver. Since there is a scant accountability, it has encouraged the parent Pakistani parties to install their front-men to ensure a regular monthly collection.

Pakistan should not show any signs of fatigue and surrender on Kashmir. The terms of limited accession with India and the UN template are the anchor sheet of Kashmir case. If anyone in Pakistan feels overwhelmed, they should return the case back to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. We shall see how Indian colonisation would hold against the merits of Kashmir case? Pakistan should not make the mistake of secretly reverting to its Kashmir policy of January 1948.

The author is President of London based Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights – NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations