SRINAGAR: Incarcerated Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Masarrat Aalam Butt has called upon the United Nations to resolve the Kashmir dispute by implementing its resolutions that guaranteed the Kashmiri people the inalienable right to self-determination.
According to a Kashmir Media Service report on Friday, Masarrat Aalam Butt in a message sent from New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail and released in Srinagar deplored that India had been violating UN resolutions and international humanitarian laws for decades and trying to subjugate the Kashmiri people through oppressive tactics.
He said that the Kashmiris were not only subjected to the worst human rights violations by the Indian troops but the BJP regime was imposing one colonial tactic after another to intimidate the IIOJK people into submission. The APHC Chairman appealed to the international community to intervene and help save the Kashmiris from Indian state terrorism they are facing because of raising their voice for granting them their legitimate demand of the right to self-determination.
Senior APHC leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq addressing the faithful at Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, today, demanded release of political prisoners and youth languishing in different jails of India and the territory.
Meanwhile, in a bid to further crush Kashmiris economically, New Delhi has given a go ahead to railway authorities to expand the railway lines in orchards of IIOJK. As per the plan, five new railway lines crisscross the Kashmir valley, including a 26-kilometer in the apple-rich stretch from Awantipora to Shopian. The Modi government touts the project’s benefits. However, Kashmir watchers see it as a conspiracy aimed at slicing countless apple trees in the name of railway expansion and thus dealing a blow to Kashmir’s apple industry which forms the backbone of the people’s economy.
The Kashmiri fruit growers who are up in arms against the railway survey revealed that apple orchards have been their only economic activity and they will adversely suffer from the new railway lines. Political leaders in Kashmir, including Mehbooba Mufti and Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, have also joined the Kashmiri orchardists to oppose the Indian government’s move. They warned of serious consequences if developmental projects were carried out in a manner that affected the interests of people.
On the other hand, in its latest attempt to engineer a demographic change in IIOJK and install a Hindutva chief minister in the Muslim-majority region, the Indian government has incorporated 11 lakh new voters, mostly non-Kashmiris, into the territory’s voter list.
Since 2019 when the voters stood at around 76 lakhs, the voter count surged to over 86 lakhs by January 2024. This increase is attributed to the rise in the number of outsiders acquiring citizenship rights post August 2019 illegal actions. Notably, immediately after scrapping the special status of IIOJK on August 05, 2019, New Delhi redefined domicile rules for the territory to make it easier for non-Kashmiris to obtain permanent residency, jobs and land in the region.