India’s settler colonialism has begun to show its true colours: Nayeem Ahmed Khan

SRINAGAR, August 18 (SABAH): Incarcerated Senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Nayeem Ahmed Khan while condemning Indian occupation authorities’ move to grant voting rights to Indian citizens ordinarily residing in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir, has said that India’s settler colonialism has begun to show its true colours.

In a message from New Delhi Tihar Jail, issued on Thursday, Nayeem Ahmed Khan while highlighting the dangerous dimensions of the move said that granting voting rights to non-state subjects would drastically change the region’s political landscape besides influencing the outcome of election results in the future. This, he said, was something the RSS and other right wing warriors had been dreaming for. Citing media reports, he said, “Anyone from outside who is living ordinarily in J&K, can enlist his or her name in the voting list”. “Allowing outsiders/non-state subjects to cast vote in a disputed territory and ignoring the region’s age-old laws is not only a brazen violation of the UN resolutions but also a violation of Indian law”, he said, adding that under Section 17 and 18 of R.P. Act, 1950, a person cannot be enrolled as a voter in more than one place. He said that rather following rules and procedure the so-called election commission was working on the whims and fantasies of the governor whose status in Kashmir was not more than an agent of the BJP government.

“Granting outsiders voting rights on their arrival in Jammu and Kashmir and the right to settle over the lands of the native people are the obvious manifestations of settler colonialism that has been in action since Indian revoked article 370 and 35-A in 2019”, Nayeem Ahmed Khan said adding that the ultimate goal of Indian settler colonialism was marginalization and elimination of indigenous people.

Terming it as deep-rooted conspiracy to minimize the Muslim majority community’s role and representation in the state legislature, the senior APHC leader said, “The purpose behind this new scheme was to grant political leverage and tilt power of balance in favour of the BJP that has since long been dreaming to install Hindu chief minister in the state thereby changing electoral landscape of the state”.

Kashmiris, he said, have time and again raised their concern over India’s settler colonialism in the region but it was very unfortunate that their concerns and pleas fell on deaf ears. “Instead of watching the situation like a silent spectator, he said that it was high time that the world should hold the Indian government accountable for its crimes in Kashmir and stop the BJP government from changing the region’s demography.

Urging people of Kashmir to come forward in a big way to foil India’s nefarious designs, Nayeem Ahmed Khan said that it was high time that conscious Kashmiris should pick up the mantel and thwart the apartheid regime’s conspiracy aimed at reducing Kashmiris to third-class citizens in their own homeland. He said that unity within the rank and file of the resistance leadership was also imperative to counter India’s anti-Kashmir agenda in the region.