Islamabad, July 14, 2022 (PPI-OT):Recalling the supreme sacrifices of July 13th, 1931 martyrs, speakers at a Webinar hosted by Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) have said that the valiant struggle of Kashmiris against despotic Dogra Maharaja was a corner stone of the ongoing struggle for right to self-determination.
The webinar titled “Kashmir Martyrs Day: Remember the martyrs of July 13, 1931” was attended and addressed by noted human rights activists, academicians, writers and political leaders hailing from both sides of the Line of Control including Shah Ghulam Qadir, President Pakistan Muslim League AJK chapter; Chaudhry Latif Akbar, Opposition Leader AJK Assembly; Abdur Rasheed Turabi, former Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami AJK; Ghulam Muhammad Safi, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, Sardar Hassan Ibrahim, Syed Ali Raza, Raja Najabat, Zaffar Qureshi, Ershad Mahmud, Syed Arif Bahar, and Raja Sajad Latief. The event was moderated by the KIIR Chairman, Altaf Hussain Wani.
Panelists while paying eulogizing tributes to martyrs reiterated that struggle in Kashmir would continue till the goal is achieved. Paying tributes to Kashmiri martyrs who were gunned down by soldiers of Dogra Maharaja on 13 July 1931, they said, by sacrificing their precious lives these martyrs had laid foundation of the rights movement going on in Kashmir.
“The current struggle in Kashmir is an extension of the movement, which was launched against despotic Maharaja. From 1931 till date more than half a million Kashmiris have offered sacrifices to achieve the cherished goal,” they said.
Terming the right to self-determination as the only acceptable solution of the Kashmir dispute to the Kashmiris, the speakers made it clear that no piece of legislation by the Indian parliament can change the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rejecting the actions Modi government had taken on Kashmir since 5th August 2019, they said, “Kashmir is an internationally recognised disputed territory that needs to be settled in accordance with the universally accepted principle of right to self-determination”.
Renewing their pledge to uphold the martyrs’ mission, they said the struggle for right to self-determination would continue unless and until Kashmiris get their cherished goal.
Drawing parallels between the ongoing struggle and the movement against Maharaja’s autocratic rule, they said, “Kashmiris were still struggling for their basic rights.”
Highlighting the dangerous dimensions of the Kashmir dispute, they said international community should come forward in a big way to help Kashmiris in shaping up their political destiny through universally accepted principle of right to self-determination.
They urged the United Nations to impress upon India to implement the relevant UN resolutions on Kashmir to settle the dispute peacefully. “The world community must take effective cognizance of the fast deteriorating political and human rights situation in the Indian occupied territory,” they said.
Voicing their grave concerns over the continued bloodshed and violence in IIOJK, the panelists said, it is high time that the UN Security Council and OIC must call an emergency session to help stop widespread killings of civilians in the territory.
Referring to uptick in the incidents of state terrorism in Kashmir they said, “The Modi government is following a vicious game-plan, on one hand it keeps harping on the so-called normalcy narrative to befool international community while on the other it has let loose its troops who continue to kill Kashmiris day in and day out”.
They also deplored the Indian government’s policy to suppress democratic dissent in Kashmir. The ruthless suppression of dissent in the region, they said, had led to an endless cycle of arbitrary arrests, and unlawful detentions of civil society activists, critics, rights defenders, journalists and political activists.
The clampdown that started on August 5, 2019, they said, had pushed the region into a quagmire of uncertainty and lawlessness. “Dissent has no place in today’s Kashmir,” they said, adding that Kashmiris be it a politician, rights activists or even a commoner, everyone was being treated as a “terrorist” and booked under sedition laws and thrown behind the bars.
Caging entire Hurriyat leadership, they said, was a well-thought-out plan of the Modi regime aimed at rendering the ongoing liberation struggle a leaderless movement. They urged the world human rights organisations to play their due role in the release of Kashmiri prisoners who have been arrested before and after 5th August 2019.
Terming the lingering Kashmir dispute as a cause of human rights violations in IIOJK, the panelists appealed the world community to play its role in resolving the dispute in line with the aspirations of Kashmiri people.
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