–Masood says Kashmiris will never compromise on political aspirations
WASHINGTON DC: Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Wednesday said that the human rights violations in occupied Kashmir must not be seen through the prism of regional politics, adding that there was a need of a lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute.
Speaking to South Asian experts at the Middle East Institute, he said the people of Kashmir were an indispensable stakeholder in any decision regarding their future.
Responding to a question related to the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir, he said India was already in violation of its obligations to the UN, while stressing that the whole process of finding a solution to the dispute was anchored in the UNSC resolutions.
Masood pointed out that the coercive state machinery, along with its supported political forces, was terrorising the people of Kashmir, particularly India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that was planning to create a mass exodus of Muslims from the disputed valley to achieve a favourable demography in the area, along with the lines of the genocide of 237,000 Muslims in 1947.
Reiterating unflinching resolve of Kashmiris to right to self-determination, he said the people of Kashmir would never compromise on their political aspirations.
India’s vicious policy of unleashing state terror on innocent people bordered on crimes against humanity, the president said, adding that political expediency and mercantilism must not hold back responsible powers from their moral, political and legal obligation of responding to the well recorded and widely reported incidents of massive human rights violations in occupied Kashmir.
Blaming the Western powers for being blackmailed by India due to latter’s economic importance, he said that the rights violations in the occupied valley continued unabated as global powers stood silent spectators.
Rubbishing India’s claims of terrorism, he said there was no terrorism in the valley as in reality in the only terrorism in Kashmir was that of India state’s, through its mass killing of the innocent Kashmiris.
India has misled the world by framing the Kashmir issue in the context of terrorism, he concluded.