UN General Assembly’s 78th Session; Kashmiris seek necessary action on the basis of right of self-determination: Farooq Rehmani  

ISLAMABAD, Sep 20 (SABAH): Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, Chairman Jammu and Kashmir People’s Freedom League and ex-Convener All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chapter, has on the eve of 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, emphasised dire need to address the forgotten question of the right of self-determination of the people of the erstwhile princely State under the principles of the charter and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions that bind the world body to ask India and Pakistan to hold a free and impartial plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of its inhabitants regarding their future political relationship in the sub continent of India and Pakistan.

Muhammad Farooq Rehmani while voicing grave concern over the pathetic and traumatic political, economic and psychological conditions of the Kashmiris in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) especially after the 5 August 2019 repeal of the Articles 370 and 35A by the present racist Modi regime of India has made a fervent appeal in an e mail letter to the UN Secretary General Antarrio Guterres to use his powers to invoke the relevant clauses and resolutions to give a new life to the 76 year political and humanitarian issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the traumatised and bifurcated part of the State was groaning under a heavy and unimaginable weight of state-sponsored tyranny but still the UN had opted dead silence over it, allowing the occupying State of India to squeeze the population for her own unethical and illegal political ends– spread a net-work, a cob-web to change demography, religion, culture, national language and everything referring to the word Muslim , despite the UN mandate on the future of the State.

  He deplored the behaviour of the Indian Modi regime towards the majority Muslim population of the State, saying that an iron curtain of repressive laws had been imposed on the people, and their surroundings and immovable properties; leaders and their sympathisers continue to languish in jails for decades in thousands without any satisfactory legal support and in the most harsh and humiliating prison conditions. “A number of government employees have been dismissed from their services, students & scholars imprisoned , deprived of their degrees, houses, lands or orchards attached and confiscated, false criminal cases filed against youth, daily attendance before army stations made obligatory, no young person was allowed to spend his life peacefully or earn his livelihood honorably “, he lamented over the plight of the Occupied Kashmiris. He told in his letter to the UN Secretary General that the so called prevention of terrorism laws, such as the Disturbed Areas Act, Armed Forces Special powers Act, Unlawful Activities prevention Act, Public Safety Act, etc had been invoked long before 1990 and were still in vogue, and while the State had been merged with India as two-shaped UTs. He claimed that a dreadful wave on the people of Kashmir had been unleashed all over the State and false history sheets of their relatives in Pakistan had been prepared to blackmail them for their uncommitted sins,” mainly to harass them and prevent them from their peaceful life.

 Therefore, he said that from every angle the situation came under the purview of the UN and it warranted action, adding that remaining a spectator would amount to support India’s repression and anti-humanitarian laws in Kashmir.

Muhammad Farooq Rehmani said that the people of Kashmir supported peace as much as the UN itself, but not at the cost of their basic human and political rights. Therefore, he appealed to the Secretary General to intervene in the current session and take up the question with India and the relevant quarters to stop it (India)from all vandalism, brutalities, killings, confiscation of properties , violation of human rights and the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of J&K. He impressed it on the Secretary General that a just and peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue was of paramount importance and hopefully the office of the honourable Secretary General would leave no stone unturned in line with his own inaugural speech and its theme to grant the Kashmiris the right to live as Kashmiris with power to shape their future like other nations on the planet Earth. May this session of the UNGA bring hope, peace and freedom from evil and tyranny to the entire world.