ISLAMABAD, Sep 22 (APP): The speakers at a seminar organized by World Muslim Congress have termed the India’s military repression, demographic engineering and its religious and civilizational aggression in Kashmir as a biggest threat Kashmiris have ever faced.
The seminar titled “Indian Military Repression, Demographic Engineering, religious and civilization aggression in occupied Kashmir” held on the sidelines of the 51st session of the UNHCR was attended and addressed by international experts, rights defenders, academicians, and political activists hailing from different parts of the world, a news release here received said.
President PPP- AJK chapter Ch. Muhammad Yasin, TeK leaders Fahim Kiani, Sardar Amjad Yousuf Executive Director Kashmir Institute of International Relations, Hurriyat leader Syed Faiz Naqashbandi and Altaf Hussain Wani permanent representative World Muslim Congress also participated the seminar.
While highlighting the dangerous dimensions of the Kashmir conflict, Altaf Hussain Wani said that Indian belligerent military occupation of the state coupled with multifront political, social and religious aggression pose a serious existential threat to the region’s indigenous population who happen to be the Muslims.
Wani said that it was quite unfortunate that the world has been blatantly ignoring the systematic slow-motion genocide of Muslims that has been going on in the region for the past several years. They said that the prolonged military occupation has led to the killings of hundreds and thousands of Kashmiris.
The speakers said In the aftermath of 5th August 2019, the human rights situation in the region has deteriorated to alarming levels. “Suppression of freedom of speech and expression has led to a wholesale imprisonment of thousands of Kashmiris who continue to languish in far off jails as undertrials. While on the other a multi-front onslaught, which has led to identity erosion, is yet another biggest challenge Kashmiris have been facing since the abrogation of article 370 and 35 A”, they said.
In addition to modification of the state’s age-old laws, the speakers pointed out that the government of India has introduced hundreds of new laws that lent impetus to BJP’s settler colonialism campaign to completely erase Kashmir’s political, religious, and cultural identity.
Referring to delimitation of constituencies, they said the reorganization of assembly constituencies to favour a particular party was used a tool to politically disempower and marginalize indigenous population.
Terming delimitation commission report as a farce, they said, “The criteria of population, which is the cardinal principle in this regard, has not been adhered to in the allocation of the assembly seats to Kashmir and Jammu regions”. They said that granting additional seats to Jamu was a deliberate move aimed at shifting the center of political power in the region from Srinagar to Jamu besides rendering the Kashmiri Muslims politically weightless and worthless.
Referring to a recently released report by Forum for Human Rights in Jamu and Kashmir, speakers mentioned that the Delimitation Commission’s report will be presented as an example in the political history of the world as how to turn a dominant majority into a political minority in the guise of democracy through gerrymandering, cracking and packing.
On religious and cultural aggression, they said that the right-wing Hindutva warriors who practically call shots on the ground have demanded the government of INDIA to impose a ban on Pheran (a traditional dress of Kashmiris) in Kashmir. Similarly, they pointed out that the RSS influenced regime led by Modi had renamed roads, historical places and educational institutions to erase the region’s indigenous historical imprints.
