- The suffering of the Kashmiri people goes on
Aljazeera portrayed the true picture of the present-day Indian-Held Kashmir in a report a few weeks back, “In more than 50 interviews, residents in a dozen villages in Kashmir told The Associated Press that the military had raided their homes since India’s government imposed a security crackdown in the region on August 5. They said the soldiers inflicted beatings and electric shocks, forced them to eat dirt or drink filthy water, poisoned their food supplies or killed livestock, and threatened to take away and marry their female relatives. Thousands of young men have been arrested.” But on the other hand Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still harping on the same theme that the cancellation of Articles 370 and 35A would bring a new flood of peace and prosperity to the Indian-Held Kashmir. It is difficult to understand what type of peace and prosperity this region is going to be blessed with in such a horrible situation where even the honour of Kashmiri women is not safe. If this is Modi’s desired shape of peace and prosperity, let the Kashmiris live in the hell of anarchy and distressful poverty instead of Modi’s paradise of peace and prosperity.
A more agonizing fact is that whosoever tries to raise voice in favour of the wretched Kashmiris, the Modi government starts a very well organized type of hostile propaganda move against it. Pakistan is also one such victim of this propaganda move; it has to face a lot of hindrances and hurdles, sometimes in the shape of blame and allegations and sometimes in the form of conspiracies; the objective is simply to malign Pakistan’s support to the Kashmiris. But it is positive that in spite of this childish and notorious behaviour of the Indian government, Pakistan has neither changed its policy nor its philosophy regarding its efforts for world peace, specifically for peace in Indian-Held Kashmir. It is also a notable fact that Pakistan has never supported, favoured or encouraged any type of militancy-based action against the cruelties of the Indian security forces in Indian-Held Kashmir. A few days before going to the USA for the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Imran Khan had said, talking to media, that anyone wanting to go and fight in occupied Kashmir would do a great injustice to the Kashmiris by undermining their legitimate cause. He had further said, “Such an act would be an act of animosity towards the Kashmiris.” This statement of Mr. Khan was warmly appreciated and admired even by the US authorities. Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells said, commenting upon Mr. Khan’s statement, “Pakistan’s sustained commitment to counter all terrorist groups is critical to regional stability.” Whatever Mr Khan said in his statement is a very clear message to the world that Pakistan wants a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue without any bloodshed, without any massacre. Unfortunately the Modi government is taking Pakistan’s desire for peace as a weakness of Pakistan. Just to make things clear for the Modi government, Mr Khan, in his speech at UNGA, had to warn the world that India’s actions in Kashmir could cause a “bloodbath” in the region and provoke war between the two nuclear-armed countries.
The atrocities and cruelties inflicted upon the people of Kashmir by the Indian security forces are a proof that inwardly the Modi government has accepted the reality that Kashmiris, in no way, want to be a part of India. The hostility of the Indian government against the Kashmiri people shows that India wants Kashmir without the people of Kashmir
On the other hand, Mr Modi also did his best to misguide the world regarding the ever worst situation of human rights violations in Kashmir by presenting a very calm and peaceful picture of the Valley, but all his efforts surely received a very serious setback when the participants of the General Assembly came to know of a petition filed in a Houston Court by a victim Kashmiri-American family for grave human rights violations in Kashmir. The Court had summoned Mr. Modi, Interior Minister Amit Shah and the commander of the Indian army in Kashmir. It seems that Mr. Modi could not remember that Court ‘invitation’ in his heat and haste. Hopefully he would again receive an ‘invitation’ for the same purpose.
For the last many weeks, the situation in Kashmir is getting worse and worse. No internet, no mobile phones, no media, no communication; incidents of rape are on the rise; Indian security forces are brutally butchering the protesters; use of pellet guns on Kashmiri youth has become a routine practice; people are not allowed even to go to the mosques. In short, on one hand the Modi government is claiming that Kashmir is an atoot ang of India but at the same time the people of Kashmir are being treated as if they belong to some hostile land; as if they are aliens. The atrocities and cruelties inflicted upon the people of Kashmir by the Indian security forces are a proof that inwardly the Modi government has accepted the reality that Kashmiris, in no way, want to be a part of India. The hostility of the Indian government against the Kashmiri people shows that India wants Kashmir without the people of Kashmir.
