- Advertisement -
ISLAMABAD, Feb 05 (APP): Former President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Masood Khan, said Thursday that Pakistan was incomplete without Kashmir, asserting that the people of Jammu and Kashmir possessed an inalienable right to self-determination grounded in history, international law, and decades of sacrifice.
According to press release, speaking at a Kashmir Solidarity event in Muzaffarabad, Ambassador Khan paid tribute to Qazi Hussain Ahmed for institutionalizing Kashmir Solidarity Day in the early 1990s and thanked the organizers for sustaining global awareness of the Kashmiri cause.
He emphasized that solidarity with Kashmiris must be continuous, as Kashmir is not a peripheral issue but an integral part of Pakistan’s national identity and historical destiny.
Ambassador Khan underlined that Pakistan’s legal claim to Jammu and Kashmir rested firmly on the Indian Independence Act of 1947 and multiple UN Security Council resolutions, which mandate that the people of the territory decide their future through a UN-supervised plebiscite.
He recalled that Kashmir met both criteria for accession to Pakistan—geographical contiguity and demographic composition—while also reflecting the clear aspirations of its Muslim majority population.
Highlighting historical injustices, Ambassador Khan recalled the Jammu massacre of 1947, in which over 237,000 Muslims were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced through orchestrated violence involving RSS cadres, Dogra forces, and allied militias.
He noted that this demographic engineering drastically altered the population balance in Jammu and laid the foundation for prolonged occupation and repression.
He stressed that even in the absence of international legal instruments, Kashmiris possess an inherent right to freedom, having resisted tyranny for nearly 200 years—from Dogra rule to modern Indian governance.
He cited landmark sacrifices, including the martyrdom of 22 Kashmiris on July 13, 1931, as evidence of a long-standing struggle for dignity, liberty, and self-rule.
Turning to developments after August 5, 2019, Ambassador Khan described the situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir as “horrendous,” marked by intensified militarization, political disenfranchisement, and systematic repression. He noted that nearly one million security personnel have been deployed across the territory, a posture consistent with occupation rather than integration.
Elections held under Indian supervision, he added, have produced powerless leadership, with real authority concentrated in New Delhi.