Kashmiris determined to secure their self-determination right: Masood Khan

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (APP): Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will continue their struggle for the right to self-determination until the objective was achieved.
Speaking to a gathering of the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora
community here, he said that the United Nations was the most appropriate forum for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
“The UN had taken a decision for a plebiscite that was accepted by all parties, but because of the world body’s inaction, India had decided to renege on its promises and had instead embarked on the path of
perpetuation of its occupation of Kashmir,” President Masood Khan said, while pointing out that it had not worked and it would not work.
The AJK president declared that the Kashmiris were determined to
secure their rights and win freedom from the Indian occupation.
He said Kashmiris wanted a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir
dispute. They wanted an end to the brutal regime of repression imposed
on them by the Indian occupation forces. Kashmir, he said, wanted to
become a symbol of peace and amity in South Asia.
President Masood Khan thanked Pakistan for its consistent and
steadfast support for the Kashmir cause.
He said not a day had passed since 1947 when the Kashmiris had
not given sacrifices. In 1947, the first ethnic cleansing and genocide
was started by the Maharajah in Kashmir, in collusion with the Indian government and extremists, in which more than 250,000 Muslims were
massacred in Jammu alone. Since then, Indian aggression in the occupied Kashmir had escalated year after year.
He said Kashmiris had demonstrated that they would not capitulate in
the face of Indian aggression nor be deceived by India’s false promises
and inducements. At this moment, he said, what the Kashmiri freedom
movement needed was acceleration in its political and diplomatic
campaigns to muster support for the Kashmir and expose India’s reign of terror in the occupied Kashmir.
In that regard, he said, the diaspora community could play a
critical role by organising their efforts and by reaching out to the UN
and other influential forums, including the US Congress, the European Parliament and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
He thanked the Pakistani and Kashmiri American community for the endeavours they were already making and said in the years to come there would be more vehemence in their voices and more coherence in their campaigns.
President Masood Khan said the UN was focusing on massacres and
pogroms in Myanmar, North Korean nuclear crisis and the Middle East.
“Kashmir is no less important nor the situation there less grave,” he
added.
He said the wilful negligence of the Kashmir dispute by the international community was at one level appeasement of India and at
another a dark human tragedy of our times. Inattention to the Kashmir dispute amounted to irresponsibility, he added.
“Kashmir has become international community’s blindspot, without realising that if do not resolve the Kashmir dispute early, we are
headed for a catastrophic crash.”