Iqbal Khan
In an exclusive interview with ‘a News’, a Turkish news channel on January 06, Prime Minister Imran Khan aptly stated that “the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) inspired ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been implementing a pogrom against the Muslims and all other minorities in India as well as in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)”. The premier said the RSS was founded during 1920 and its founding fathers had been directly inspired by the Nazi party, and openly admired its racial and extremist policies. “Pakistan will never forget the Turkish and Malaysian support on Kashmir cause after Indian illegal act of August 5, 2019”, PM added.
The RSS philosophy led to racial supremacists as even Mahatama Gandhi was assassinated by an RSS zealot. But when Modi came to power, he responded to a pogrom against the Muslims as evident from his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat where hundreds of Muslims were massacred and made homeless by the fanatic Hindus supremacists.
The RSS followers believe that India is the country only for the Hindus to live in. Such a situation is not only dangerous for the Muslims, but also for the other minorities in India. RSS-BJP policies against the Muslims and Christians have a historic anchorage—avenging their rule over India.
Modi’s whole election campaign was based upon whipping up jingoistic and anti- Pakistan sentiment. Kashmir issue is a lingering dispute between Pakistan and India. Modi government, after illegal and unilateral action of August 5, 2019, is trying to change the demography of Kashmir to reduce the Muslim majority in the valley. Senior Kashmir leadership has been detained by India.
On January 5, 1949, the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) had adopted a resolution that embodied the principle of the right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir. The resolution mentions that the question of accession of Kashmir will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.
President Alvi in his message said that Pakistan would continue to extend all possible support for the just cause of the people of Jammu and Kashmir till the realisation of their right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions. “The right to self-determination is a vital component of human dignity. The negation of this right is the negation of human freedom, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Human Rights Covenants,” he said. “India is the biggest violator of this inalienable human right,” he added. “The people of IIOJK, he said, were being subjected to collective punishment by the Indian occupation forces, which had turned the territory into the largest militarized zone in the world and were seeking to change the demographic structure of the occupied territory in violation of the international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention”.
India is committing war crimes in India Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) by violating Article-82 (2b, VIII) of the Rome Statute of International criminal court (ICC) and article 143 of Geneva Convention-IV.
Several senior Muslim Kashmiri leaders, including Syed Ali Gilani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, are also under house detention, while other prominent leaders, such as Aasiya Andrabi, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmed Shah and Masarrat Aalam Mutt is in New Delhi’s notorious Tihar Jail. Andrabi like other Kashmiri leaders has been illegally arrested over malicious, false and fabricated charges by the Indian government through invoking draconian laws promulgated in IIOJK.
Dr Asiya Andrabi, founder of Dukhtraan-e-Millat is facing inhuman treatment by the Indian government during imprisonment with deteriorating health conditions. The Indian government is setting the stage for the judicial murder of Asiya Andrabi in coming weeks. Indian government is using all its force to suppress the voice of Kashmiris.
Indian government arrested the Asiya Andrabi and her associates Famida Sufi and Nahida Nasreen in Oct 2016. Their sin was to raise voice for the rights of women and the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir.Indian government charged them with the act of terrorism and other draconian laws under the public safety act. Later, they were transferred to Tihar jail.
Under Geneva Convention IV, Article 49, it is prohibited to transfer an individual or group of “protected persons from occupied territory to the occupying power, regardless of their motives”. India had violated article 49 multiple times by transferring Kashmiri leaders including Asiya Andrabi, her husband Dr Ashiq Hussain Faktoo and other leaders from Kashmiri prisons to notorious Tihar Jail. Dr Faktoo is in Indian Prison serving a life sentence for 27 years.
India is also violating Article 76 of Geneva Convention IV, while not allowing the delegate of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the prison. This article also calls that women shall be confined in separate quarters and shall be under the direct supervision of women. According to Dr Shireen Mazari, Minister for Huma Rights, it is the binding duty of India being the signatory of International Human Rights Law and Humanitarian Law of the United Nations World Summit in
2005.
Against all norms, Indian Supreme Court defined the term “death imprisonment” as the imprisonment till death of the individual during a verdict in 2012. Presently, the Indian government is using this verdict to penalize Asiya Andrabi to kept her behind bar till her death. It is just like the judicial murder of an individual.
India has been using the tools of oppression and ill-treatment to spread a sense of fear among the unarmed and innocent Muslim people of IIOJK for the past over seven decades. Thousands of Kashmiris including innocent youth, members of civil society, journalists and Kashmiri leaders remain incarcerated in Indian prisons, several of them at unrevealed locations and aloof from their families. The Indian forces still operate in the illegally occupied territory with complete impunity under draconian laws like the Public Safety Act (PSA) and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
Systematic demonization, dispossession, marginalisation and targeted violence against Muslims using the communal slur of “love jihad” in Hindutva-inspired India has become commonplace. It is no secret that attacks by cow vigilantes and mob lynching of Indian Muslims take place regularly, with complete impunity for the perpetrators. State complicity in organized violence against the Muslim minority in India is a matter of record.
International human rights organizations need to come forward play their role to end this draconian law. Indian occupational army has itself confessed that it had killed the ordinary Muslim civilians in fake encounters in Indian illegally occupied Kashmir, and later declared them terrorists.
Despite suffering 73 years of brutal Indian occupation, the Kashmiri people remain steadfast generation after generation in their demand for their inalienable right to self-determination. The United Nations, especially the UN Security Council, bear the responsibility to ensure fulfilment of the promise to the Kashmiris.
Writer is a freelance columnist; email: Iqbal.khan9999@yahoo.com