ISLAMABAD: Vice Chairman Jammu and Kashmir National Front (JKNF) Altaf Hussain Wani, while terming 27 October is darkest day in Kashmir’s recent history, has said that India’s naked aggression on this fateful day in 1947 laid a horrible foundation of the Kashmir conflict that threatens peace and stability in the South Asian region even after the passage of 76 long years.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, the National Front leader said that this act of aggression not only put a stumbling block in the way of smooth and full implementation of the agenda of the partition plan in the subcontinent but also pushed the entire region into a quagmire of uncertainty, chaos and instability.
“Unfortunately, the bloodshed that India started in occupied Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is still going on unabated”, he said, adding that the blood of innocent Kashmiris was being spilt with impunity on both sides of the ceasefire line.
Referring to India’s history of colonizing Kashmir, he said that the settler colonialism policies of the Indian government, which mirror Israel’s policies, have instilled a sense of fear among Kashmiris who feel increasingly unsafe and insecure even in their homes.
The deadly conflict, he said, has now assumed dangerous proportions after the Indian fascist regime led by BJP stripped the region of its special status guaranteed to it under Article 370 of the Indian constitution.
Terming India’s belligerent military occupation of Kashmir as a great threat to peace and stability in the region, Wani said that it was quite alarming that the world powers have been ignoring this dangerous aspect of this long-drawn conflict.
Urging the influential world governments and institutions to take effective notice of the matter, the National Front leader said, “The dispute, if left unresolved, is bound to consume more precious lives besides fuelling unrest in this highly volatile region”.
He lamented that the Indian rulers have always used its repressive state apparatus, Machiavellian machinations and colonial tactics as a tool to crush the ongoing liberation struggle in Kashmir, to seize the fundamental freedoms and liberties of the people and to silence democratic dissent in the region.
“Notwithstanding its commitments on Kashmir the successive Indian governments and rulers have unabashedly pursued a policy of deceit and deception to neutralize the Kashmiri masses’ legitimate demands for holding a referendum under the auspicious of the world’s highest forum the United Nations”, he said, adding that the UNSC resolutions calling for a free and impartial plebiscite in the region was endorsed by the Indian representative in the UN Security Council, in particular, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was the first to approach the highest forum on the matter.
He said that under the given situation, the first and foremost responsibility of the global community was to take effective cognizance of the prolonged military occupation and play its due role in settling the conflict by relevant resolutions of the Security Council, which have promised the people of Jammu and Kashmir their right of self-determination.
Wani said that Indian rulers need to realize the bitter reality that lasting peace in the region was not possible unless the Kashmir issue was addressed from its historical perspective.
He said that no Kashmiri would ever forget 27 October, the day when India invaded Kashmir and occupied it illegally and forcibly. Reiterating Kashmiris’ pledge to take the ongoing struggle to its logical conclusion, he said that India cannot force Kashmiris to surrender or to submit by using its military might. “India must read the writing on the wall that it will have to quit Kashmir, sooner or later”, he said.