Prime Minister Imran Khan has alleged that the “illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir” is part of a wider strategy by the Indian government to target Muslims.
In a post on Twitter, the prime minister said: “Reports in Indian and international media on Modi Govt’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims should send alarm bells ringing across the world that the illegal annexation of Kashmir is part of a wider policy to target Muslims.”
He shared a recent report from the Indian state of Assam where almost 2mn people were denied citizenship yesterday (see report on Page 13), risking mass deportations of Muslims from the area.
On Friday the government led mass demonstrations around the country in solidarity with the people of Indian-administered Kashmir.
At the rally in Islamabad, led by the prime minister himself, Khan told the thousands in attendance that “we are with them in their testing times. The message that goes out of here today is that as long as Kashmiris don’t get freedom, we will stand with them”.
Friday’s protests came as the New York Times published an op-ed by Khan, where the former cricket star warned of rising hostilities between the countries.
“World War II happened because of appeasement at Munich. A similar threat looms over the world again, but this time under the nuclear shadow,” he wrote.
The prime minister lamented that the international community remains silent when Muslims are being oppressed.
“The whole world is watching what is taking place in Kashmir. I want to tell you that if Kashmiris were not Muslims, the entire world would have stood with them.”
Last month India revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Pakistan has reacted to New Delhi’s move by downgrading diplomatic relations, halting bilateral trade and suspending cross-border transport links with India.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
Both countries rule parts of Kashmir while claiming it in full.
Two of the three wars they have fought have been over it.
Yesterday Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi hailed the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs’s decision to discuss the prevailing situation in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Speaking to Geo News, the minister said that the meeting of the US House Committee will prove to be quite useful regarding the Kashmir dispute.
“Overseas Pakistanis, particularly the Pak-American community, has played a key role to internationalise the issue,” Qureshi said, adding that Pakistan is highlighting the Kashmir issue across the globe which is why the issue is being discussed on every forum.
The foreign minister added that Prime Minister Khan will also raise the Kashmir issue during his speech at the UN General Assembly session this month.
The US House Foreign Relations Committee said on Friday that it will soon hear the issue of Indian-administered Kashmir in its upcoming meeting.
Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asia, Brad Sherman, announced that the subcommittee will soon hold a hearing on the deteriorating situation in Kashmir, which has been under a clampdown since August 5.
“The hearing will focus on the humanitarian situation in Kashmir, where many political activists have been arrested and daily life, the Internet and telephone communications have been interrupted,” Sherman said.
Meanwhile, former Pakistan Senate chairman Raza Rabbani has said that it is time for Pakistan to pull out of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), “as it is worse than the United Nations”.
Taking part in a discussion on Kashmir in the Senate, he said the “bubble of an Islamic Ummah [community] had burst” and that Pakistan should reappraise its relationship with the Ummah.
Recalling that the OIC had failed to act whenever Pakistan or any other Muslim country faced a difficult situation, he referred to the 1990s genocide in Bosnia and the situation in Palestine.
“The world has become too profit-oriented and focused on economic interests,” Rabbani said.
He cited as examples a $15bn deal signed recently between Aramco, the Saudi-owned oil giant, and India’s largest conglomerate Reliance, conferment of the UAE’s highest civil award on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the signing of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) during the first-ever visit to Bahrain by an Indian premier last week, to drive home the point that Muslim countries were too busy minding their own business to bother about issues like Kashmir.
Rabbani said that parliament needed to inform all human rights organisations about the uninterrupted curfew and the state of human rights in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“Pakistan should move an emergency motion at the general assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in October and raise violation of human rights at the IPU’s meeting in Maldives next month,” he suggested.
Rabbani said parliament should try to convene special meetings of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Asian Parliamentary Association to raise awareness about the Kashmir issue.
“Parliament should prepare a list of all international treaties and covenants signed by India, and inform the world how it’s violating them today in Kashmir,” he added.
The former Senate chairman said Pakistan should ask the UN Commission on Human Rights to convene a meeting on the matter and call upon the world body to send observers to Kashmir.
“We should now focus on Asia and end our alignment with Washington,” he added.
In his speech, Senator Rehman Malik said that crimes against humanity committed by the Indian forces made Prime Minister Modi liable to trial by the International Criminal Court.
“I have already prepared a petition for filing with the ICC,” he said.
He said that the revocation of Articles 370 and 35-A of the Indian Constitution by the Indian parliament was a violation of UN resolutions.
“It is unfortunate that the UN has failed to implement its own resolutions on Kashmir,” the senator observed.
Mushahid Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz underlined the need to have a three-pronged strategy to deal with the challenge posed by India’s “irresponsible” actions as, ironically enough, New Delhi’s measures offered an opportunity as well.
“India’s claim of being a democratic and secular state stands exposed now. I have read 30 articles on the issue, 27 of which were against India,” Hussain added.
He suggested that the strategy with regard to India should now be “Modi-specific and expose him as fascist and racist”.
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