ISLAMABAD, Mar 04 (APP): Jammu and Kashmir People’s Freedom League Chairman and former convener of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Muhammad Farooq Rehmani Saturday accused the Indian government of neglecting the rights of the Kashmiri people and pursuing a “racist” and “obscurantist” agenda that seeks to erase the region’s historical, geographical and cultural identity.
Talking to APP, Rehmani claimed that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have been “forgotten and left lurching in grief and gloom” by the Indian government, which he accused of seeking to impose a “religious conspiracy” against the majority Muslim population of the region.
According to Rehmani, the Indian government’s latest policies have only served to exacerbate tensions in the region, with the Kashmiri people facing “rights-denial” and “fragmentation” as a result.
He accused Delhi of pursuing a “revengeful political and economic regime” in the region and called on the international community to take action to protect the rights of the Kashmiri people.
Rehmani expressed his disappointment with the lack of action taken by the United Nations and other major democracies in addressing the plight of the people of Kashmir.
Rehmani alleged that the Indian government has violated basic human rights, property rights, economic rights, employment rights, and the right to live peacefully in their own homes of the Kashmiri people.
He further stated that the country and inheritance laws of the region are being trespassed and violated by the Indian authorities.
The chairman condemned the enforced disappearance of a Kashmiri youth, Abdul Rashid Dar, whose mutilated dead body was recovered from the Zurhama forests after about three months of his arrest by the army. He also condemned the use of inhumane laws on the Kashmiri people.
He also expressed concern about the plan of the Indian government to change the demography of Kashmir in its favour within the next few years.
Rehmani urged the civil society of Pakistan, especially the legal fraternity and human rights activists, to take note of the malicious intentions of the BJP regime regarding the Kashmiri Muslim inmates presently in different jails of India, who are not allowed to see the light of day.
He warned that the apathetic trend of major democracies and Muslim countries could lead to unexpected war-flames engulfing countries fighting for hegemony.
Rehmani called on the Indian government to repeal all inhumane laws, including the August 5 proclamation of 2019, from the occupied region of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the termination of services of employers on fabricated grounds from their offices, demolishing of houses in the name of so-called encroachment policy and seizure and attachment of houses or shops of legal owners by the Indian government in the Occupied State and arresting and detaining and moreover denying the Kashmiri inmates their right to be free from jails even after decades.
He said that the magnitude of brutalities and use of other inhuman laws on the Kashmiris in the valley and Jammu speaks a lot and must be addressed by the UN at the earliest.
In case of failure to take action by the UN, he feared that the entire population of Kashmiri Muslims was under perpetual threat.
On the issue of Kashmiri Pandits, he said a peaceful coexistence and religious and cultural toleration between communities was a firm tradition of the past and the same could no less guarantee their mutual future.
But both communities should work for harmonious relations inside Kashmir and never be swayed by mischievous propaganda and raise their voices against acts of terror against each other.
