His Excellency Dr Volker Türk United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Date 10 December 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

Re: Urgent intervention is urged, to save Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik’s life.

Excellency on the 75 anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- UDHR, your urgent intervention is needed to save pro peace Kashmiri leader Mr Muhammed Yasin Malik's life from a death sentence being sought against him by the Indian Government, while a double life sentence was served on him in a politically motivated ‘terror funding’ case on 25 May 2022.

 Excellency millions of Kashmiris across the ceasefire line CfL in Kashmir and in the diaspora are deeply shocked at the decision by the Indian Government to seek death penalty for their leader.  

This decision is a cruel ploy by India’s BJP leadership to eliminate its political opponent through an unfair trial. You are strongly urged to dissuade India’s BJP Government from committing a grave injustice against the pro peace Kashmiri leader.

Mr Malik is a revered and most charismatic political leader, and an indispensable part of a political solution on the status of the internationally disputed Jammu Kashmir - generally referred to as Kashmir. Kashmiris expect that the OHCHR will call out such a spiteful, malicious and politically motivated vindictive prosecution of Mr Malik by the Mr Modi’s BJP Government in India.

 Excellency, instead of engaging in dialogue with Mr Malik and the Kashmiri leadership for a just and democratic resolution of the issue, Mr Modi’s Government annexed and bifurcated the internationally disputed Jammu Kashmir on 5 August 2019, and  arrested  Kashmiri leaders under laws which OHCHR reports of June 2018 and July 2019, quite rightly described as India’s “lawless laws.”

The BJP Government is extremely intolerant of political dissent in Kashmir. Even human rights defenders like Khurram Parvez, as well as numerous Kashmiri journalists, are held under laws such as the Public Safety Act, PSA and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, UAPA, that are inconsistent with international law. These lawless laws especially UAPA, allow the authorities to declare individuals as ‘terrorists’ without producing incriminating evidence against them.

 Mr Malik is the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front-JKLF-which is committed to a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. He was arrested on 19 February 2019 under the notorious and draconian PSA in Srinagar. At present he is held at India’s notorious Tihar Jail in solitary confinement. He and other Kashmiri leaders including Mr Shabir Shah, Ms Aasiya Andrabi, Ms Nahida Nasreen, and Mr Masarat Alam, are all part of the solution in the Kashmir issue.

 The UN has a responsibility to ensure that their right to free speech and freedom of movement is guaranteed and protected under UN Charter and over twenty UN resolutions regarding the political status of Kashmir. India is duty bound therefore, to ensure the fundamental rights, including the inalienable and the inherent right to self-determination, and the territorial integrity of Jammu and Kashmir State, which India has subverted and vitiated in contravention of her international commitments on the question of Kashmir’s status.

 Excellency, Mr Malik renounced armed resistance in 1994 and embarked on a peaceful movement for the resolution of the Kashmir issue. He met many Indian leaders including Prime Ministers Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr IK Gujral, and the highly respected Mr Atul Bihari Vajpayee, politicians including ministers, senior officials and civil society figures who supported his decision for a peaceful movement to achieve Kashmiris’ fundamental sovereign rights through a political settlement.

He was assured of “genuine political space,” by the Indian leadership that the Kashmir issue would be resolved through meaningful dialogue. India’s first BJP Prime Minister the late respected Atul Bihari Vajpayee, promised the Kashmiris "the sky is the limit." On the other hand his successor Mr Modi has completely reneged on the Vajpayee principles, and has adopted an ‘all-out muscular Kashmir policy’ in which there is no space for dialogue on the Kashmir issue!

 Excellency, under Mr Modi’s doctrine, Kashmiris and their leadership have a stark choice, either accept Modi’s Kashmir policy, meaning status quo, or face India’s fury and wrath. Consequently, Mr Malik’s prosecution is politically motivated as Modi doctrine does not recognise fundamental, inherent and inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination, even though the UNSC resolutions call on India, and also Pakistan, to respect the will of the Kashmiris, through a UN supervised Plebiscite.

 To further his cause Mr Malik visited the US and Britain where he met with officials, political figures, members of the civil society, and human rights organisations. British and the US officials, the Indian Home Ministry’s Minister of State late Rajesh Pilot, senior officials, prominent civil society members, former diplomats, judges and academics, supported and encouraged Mr Malik in his peaceful resistance with which, he has kept firm faith. Mr Modi however, has completely reneged on the commitments for political space and dialogue. In the 1990s India’s current National Security Adviser, Mr Ajit Doval had also acted as a go between in negotiations with Indian authorities and Mr Malik.

 Not being content with his oppressive policies in Kashmir the Modi Government annexed the disputed State Jammu Kashmir on 5 August 2019 and bifurcated it into two Union Territories to be ruled directly from Delhi. By annexing and breaking up JK into union territories, Mr Modi’s Government completely disregarded India’s solemn commitments at the UN and bilateral agreements, both with Pakistan, and the Srinagar based Government of Indian administered Kashmir.

Excellency the Indian Supreme Court is expected to give a long awaited decision on 11 December 2023 regarding petitions before it on the dismantling of JK by the Modi Government on 5 august 2019. While Kashmiris await with abated breath about the SC decision, it remains to be seen what a Supreme Court of a neo- colonial India decides on the restoration of the semi-autonomous status of internationally disputed Jammu Kashmir whose status is yet to be determined through a UN supervised plebiscite by its 22 million people.

 Excellency, it is important to remember that Kashmir’s provisional and conditional constitutional relationship with India, was based on defined spheres of responsibilities, linked specifically with the 26 October 1947 conditional agreement, which was underpinned by the subsequent article 370 of the Indian constitution. As a consequence of unilateral abrogation by India of article 370 on 5 August 2019, the constitutional bridge between India and Kashmir no longer exists.

 Therefore, India rules Kashmir today as a colonial occupier with the enormous presence of over 900,000 troops backed up by a plethora of oppressive and draconian laws, two of these lawless laws, PSA and UAPA, are mentioned above. On 5 August 2019, Mr Modi’s Government also took away hard fought fundamental historic citizenship rights of Kashmiris with abrogation of article 35A.  This has opened the floodgates into Kashmir of 1.4 billion Indians; which is manifestly designed to turn the people of Jammu Kashmir into a minority in their own homeland.

 Excellency, Mr Malik is a frail 58 year old dignified, God fearing, brave and proud man with integrity. He has many medical ailments and health issues. He has been shut away, and has no idea about the outside situation. His only contact is with his ailing elderly mother who is assisted by his sister in Kashmir. He has not seen his Pakistani wife since his only child, a 12 year old daughter, was a toddler. In protest Mr Malik went on hunger strike twice at the manner in which his politically motivated prosecution and trials are being conducted in the Indian courts. In other words he is not being heard by the Indian judicial system. Instead, Mr Malik has been prosecuted over the past five years under false and fabricated cases. Despite undertakings given and kept by all, except by the Modi Government, thirty year old militancy related cases were re-opened as part of the politically motivated vendetta against the pro peace leader.

 Excellency, Mr Malik is an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. India’s BJP Modi led Government however, derives its ideological inspiration not from the anti-colonial and pro peace Gandhi but from the RSS, which is the antithesis of the Gandhian political and religious philosophy, and the world view of India. Mr Modi believes in the total, political, social and cultural conquest of Kashmir, and an unquestioned submission of Kashmiri peoples’ will. Mr Malik however, is not prepared to surrender and capitulate his people and his free will to Mr Modi's, political, judicial, communal, and militarised aggression.

 Excellency, Prime Minister Modi’s ultra-(religious) nationalist BJP is in an election mode to enthuse its majoritarian electoral base. Through India’s pliant media, the BJP vilifies and portrays Mr Malik as Kashmir’s Osama Bin Laden to justify his ominously looming judicial murder. Mr Malik however, wants to see Kashmir as a bridge of peace, amity and prosperity in South Asia rather than a perpetual bone of contention between India and Pakistan. To Kashmiris the OHCHR as the apex human rights institution of the UN, is morally and legally well placed, to avert the vindictively malicious judicial oppression, and the intended judicial murder of a man, who is committed to Kashmir’s peaceful political transition.  By seeking the death penalty to eliminate a Kashmiri political opponent, Mr Modi portrays himself as the region’s hegemon against a defenceless man of peace.

Therefore, on the seventy fifth anniversary of the formation of the UDHR your Excellency is kindly reminded of the solemn obligation to uphold the principles of international legality, justice and morality vested in you as the head of the UN’s Human Rights Commission to intervene, and save the life of the pro peace Kashmiri leader, Mr Muhammad Yasin Malik.

Yours
Sincerely,

Zafar Khan-
Head of JKLF’s Diplomatic Bureau.
Email: jklfdiplomaticbureau@gmail.com

His Excellency Dr Volker Türk United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Date 22 June 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

Re: Save Yasin Malik: Indian PM Modi seeks death penalty for the pro peace Kashmiri leader.

Excellency I take this opportunity to make a fervent appeal and seek your urgent intervention to save Mr Muhammed Yasin Malik's life as India’s BJP Modi Government seeks death penalty for the pro peace Kashmiri leader. Mr Malik was given a double life sentence in a politically motivated trial on 25 May 2022 by a security court of India’s National Security Agency (NIA) with false charges on terror funding.

The NIA was specifically tasked to orchestrate these charges against the most prominent opponent of Modi Government’s oppression in Kashmir (also called Jammu and Kashmir-J&K).  On 29 May 2023 the appeal of the NIA to convert Mr Malik's life sentence to death was heard by the Delhi High Court, which ordered Mr Malik to respond by 9 August 2023.

 Excellency millions of   Kashmiris across the ceasefire line CfL in Kashmir and in the diaspora, are deeply shocked and seriously aggrieved at Mr Modi’s decision to seek their leader’s death sentence.

The decision is seen by the Kashmiris as a deviously cruel ploy by the Modi Government, to eliminate their defenceless political opponent for electoral gains in the 2024 Indian general election. It is vitally important therefore, that the Indian Prime Minister is firmly told to withdraw the appeal for death penalty, and strongly dissuaded from committing a grave injustice against the pro peace Kashmiri leader.

Mr Malik is the most prominent and revered Kashmir leader. As such he is an indispensable part of a political solution on the status of his internationally disputed homeland. People of Kashmir therefore, expect that the OHCHR will call out India’s Modi Government for its spiteful, malicious and politically motivated vindictive persecution and prosecution of Mr Malik. And for acting with total impunity in Kashmir, the political status which, is yet to be determined under UN auspices through a democratic and transparent plebiscite.

Instead of engaging in dialogue with Mr Malik and the Kashmiri leadership on the Kashmir issue, Modi Government annexed the internationally disputed region on 5 August 2019, and began arrests and prosecution of Kashmiri leaders under laws which OHCHR reports of June 2018 and July 2019, quite rightly describe as India’s “lawless laws.”

Excellency Mr Modi’s Government is extremely intolerant of political dissent in Kashmir. Even   human rights defenders like Khurram Parvez, as well as many Kashmiri journalists, are held under laws such as the Public Safety Act PSA and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA, the laws that are inconsistent with international law.  These lawless laws especially UAPA, allow the authorities to declare individuals as terrorists without producing incriminating evidence against them.

Mr Malik is the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front-JKLF, a political movement committed for a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. He was arrested on 19 February 2019 under the notorious and draconian PSA in Srinagar. He is imprisoned at the Tihar Jail in Delhi in solitary confinement. Mr Malik, and other Kashmiri leaders including Mr Shabir Shah, Ms Aasiya Andrabi, Ms Nahida Nasreen, and Masarat Alam are all part of the solution in the Kashmir issue. The UN has a responsibility to ensure that their right to free speech and freedom of movement is guaranteed and protected under UN Charter and UN resolutions on the Kashmir issue/dispute. India is duty bound to ensure as a trustee and proxy of the UN in Kashmir, to ensure that the fundamental rights, including the inalienable and the inherent right to self-determination, and the territorial integrity of Jammu and Kashmir State, is not subverted or vitiated.

Excellency Mr Malik renounced armed resistance in 1994 and embarked on a peaceful movement for the resolution of the Kashmir issue. He met many Indian leaders including Prime Ministers Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr IK Gujral, and the highly respected Mr Atul Bihari Vajpayee, politicians including ministers, senior officials and civil society figures who supported his decision for a peaceful political movement to achieve Kashmiris’ fundamental sovereign rights. He was assured of “genuine political space,” and   undertakings were given to him by Indian leadership that the Kashmir issue will be resolved through meaningful dialogue with the relevant parties.

The respected first BJP Prime Minister of India late Atul Bihari Vajpayee, promised the Kashmiris "the sky is the limit."  Mr Modi his successor, has completely reneged on the Vajpayee principles, and has adopted an ‘all-out muscular Kashmir policy’ in which there is no space for dialogue on the Kashmir issue!

Excellency under Mr Modi’s doctrine, Kashmiris and their leadership has a stark choice, either accept Modi’s Kashmir policy, meaning status quo, or face India’s fury and wrath. Consequently Mr Malik’s prosecution is politically motivated as Modi doctrine does not recognise fundamental, inherent and inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination, even though the UNSC resolutions call on India, and also Pakistan, to respect the will of the people in Kashmir through a UN supervised Plebiscite

To further his cause Mr Malik visited the US and Britain where he met with officials, political figures, members of the civil society, and human rights organisations. British and the US officials, the Indian Home Ministry’s Minister of State late Rajesh Pilot, senior officials, prominent civil society members, ex diplomats, judges and academics, supported and encouraged Mr Malik in his peaceful resistance with which, he has kept firm faith. Mr Modi however, has completely reneged on the commitments for political space and dialogue. India’s current National Security Adviser, Mr Ajit Doval had also acted as a go between during negotiations with the Indian authorities and Mr Malik.

Not being content with his oppressive policies in Kashmir the Modi Government annexed the disputed State on 5 August 2019 and bifurcated it into two Union Territories to be ruled directly from Delhi. By annexing and breaking up Kashmir into union territories, Mr Modi’s Government completely disregarded India’s solemn commitments at the UN and bilateral agreements, both with Pakistan, and the Srinagar based Government of Indian administered Kashmir.

Excellency, it is important to remember that Kashmir’s provisional and conditional constitutional relationship with India, was based on defined spheres of responsibilities, linked specifically with the 26 October 1947 conditional agreement, which was underpinned by the subsequent article 370 of the Indian constitution. As a consequence of unilateral abrogation by India of article 370 on 5 August 2019, the constitutional bridge between India and Kashmir no longer exists. Therefore, India rules Kashmir today as a colonial occupier with the enormous presence of over 900,000 troops backed up by a plethora of oppressive and draconian laws, two of these lawless laws, PSA and UAPA, are mentioned above.

Mr Malik is a frail 57 year old dignified, God fearing, brave and proud man with integrity. He has many medical ailments and health issues. He has been shut away, and has no idea about the outside situation. His only contact is with his ailing elderly mother who is assisted by his sister in Kashmir. He has not seen his Pakistani wife since his only child, a ten year old daughter, was a toddler.

In protest he went on hunger strike twice at the manner in which India’s politicised judiciary conducted, and continues to conduct his trials. He has not been heard by the Indian judicial system.

Instead Mr Malik has been prosecuted over the past four years under false and fabricated cases. Despite undertakings given and kept by all, except by the Modi Government, thirty year old militancy related cases were re-opened as part of the politically motivated vendetta against the pro peace leader.

Excellency, Mr Malik is an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. India’s Modi led BJP Government however, derives its ideological inspiration not from Gandhi but from the RSS, which is the antithesis of the Gandhian political and religious philosophy, and the world view of India. Mr Modi believes in the total, political, social and cultural conquest of Kashmir, and an unquestioned submission of Kashmiri peoples’ will. Mr Malik however, is not prepared to surrender and capitulate his peoples’ free will to Mr Modi's, political, judicial, communal, and militarised aggression.

Mr Modi’s ultra-(religious) nationalist BJP is in an election mode to enthuse its majoritarian electoral base. Through India’s pliant media, the BJP vilifies and portrays Mr Malik as Kashmir’s Osama Bin Laden to justify his judicial murder. Mr Malik however, wants to see Kashmir as a bridge of peace, amity and prosperity in South Asia rather than a perpetual bone of contention.

To Kashmiris the OHCHR as the apex human rights institution of the UN, is morally and legally well placed, to avert the vindictively malicious judicial oppression, and the intended murder of a man, who is genuinely committed to Kashmir’s peaceful political transition, and quite clearly therefore, he is the voice of peace in Kashmir.

By seeking the death penalty to eliminate a Kashmiri political opponent, Mr Modi portrays himself as the region’s hegemon against a defenceless man of peace, who has the right and the truth on his side.

Excellency as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights you are well placed to exercise the moral and legal powers vested in you by the world conscience. I urge your Excellency to uphold international legality and morality, to save the life of the pro peace Kashmiri leader Mr Muhammad Yasin Malik.

Yours

Sincerely

Zafar Khan-

Head of Diplomatic Bureau Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front

International Secretariat 119-123 Cannon Street Rd London E1 2LX

Email: jklfdiplomaticbureau@gmail.com

Copied:  Maria Arena MEP head of European Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights

Johana Cherry KC MP Chair Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights

Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch.  Reprieve

 London (24 May 2023)

Statement issued by the Diplomatic Bureau of JKLF, London has called upon the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London for an urgent meeting on the deteriorating health of JKLF Chairman Mr Yasin Malik, who has been held in Tihar prison since May 2019, now moved into Solitary Confinement.

Members of the Diplomatic bureau will also take up the issue of India’s ongoing grave human rights abuses  and its open and blatant violations of the UN resolutions on the status of the Jammu Kashmir state.

The Foreign Office has responded by agreeing to host the delegation of the JKLF Diplomatic bureau in mid July.

JKLF Diplomatic Bureau
JKLF International Secretariat,
119-123 Camnon Street Road
London E1 2LX

 JKLF Diplomatic Bureau London - has called upon the world’s top Human Rights organisations including, International federation for Human Rights ( FIDH), offices of UN high Commissioner (OHCHR), Human Rights Watch ( HRW ), Amnesty International, International committee of Red Cross, Asia Watch and Secretary of Head of Commonwealth expressing deep concerns on the deteriorating health condition of Yasin Malik, who is languishing in Tihar prison, (in solitary confinement) on fabricated and politically motivated charges. 

In a statement issued on 22nd May 2023, Jklf Diplomatic Bureau has urged the heads of these organisations to use their good offices and  intervene in providing a medical board in assessing  Yasin Malik ‘s health, and  take steps towards his release from his illegitimate imprisonment.

London 20th May 2023.

JKLF Diplomatic bureau has written to  the Chinese Ambassador HE Ambassador Zheng  Zeyuang, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ambassador HRH Prince Khalid Bin Bandar Bin Sultan and Turkiye Ambassador HE  Osman Koray Ertas, thanking their respective governments for withdrawing and boycotting the G20 group working meeting in Srinagar, ( Indian Occupied Kashmir). The letter said the decisions by the friendly countries are in accordance with the UN charter  and UNCIP Resolutions on Jammu Kashmir. The Kashmiri people are eternally grateful and appreciative of your stand for a just and a peaceful solution of this 75 year longstanding international issue. The Statement also urged all other G20 Member state NOT to attend the meetings in the internationally recognised disputed territory, and reminded them of their legal obligations and commitments to the UN Resolutions on the State of Jammu Kashmir.                               

Jklf Diplomatic Bureau,
JKLF International Secretariat,             
119-123 Cannon st Road,                   
London E1 2LX.

An open letter by the JKLF to the Foreign Ministers of OIC States, meeting in Islamabad on 22 March 2022.

Excellencies

RE: Indian Gov’t’s nefarious and pernicious Jammu & Kashmir -J&K- Policy: decimation and re-writing of history.

Excellencies, India’s right wing Hindu ultra-nationalist BJP/RSS Government’s decision to abrogate articles 370, and 35A on 5 August 2019 to annex, and bifurcate Kashmir, is illegal, her decision to do so however, is designed to obliterate Kashmir’s heritage, destroy its religious and cultural identity, turn the majority Muslim population into an inconsequential minority, and to communalise the centuries’ old harmony and tolerance in Indian occupied Kashmir to further its nefariously pernicious objective, of the  BJP/RSS Government’s flagship Hindutva project. Primarily, India’s policy is designed to bring about demographic change. This is intended to be achieved with new domicile rules which replaced article 35A. Through these illegal rules, Indian occupied Kashmir has literally been opened up to 1.3 billion people of India. It is pertinent to remind your Excellencies that by revoking article 370 on 5 August 2019 India no longer has a conditional arrangement to be in J&K, and therefore, India’s   presence in Kashmir is that of an occupier.

Excellencies, Political dissent, systematic human rights violations and detentions of civilians, including political leaders are perpetrated under repressive Public Safety Act PSA, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act AFSPA. Mr Yasin Malik, the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), is held under such punitive laws which are colonial in nature and designed to force him into submission.  Having been arrested on 22 February in 2019 and detained at a local police station in Srinagar, Mr Malik was slapped with the inhuman PSA on 7 March and removed to Kot Balwal jail in Jammu, while on 9 May 2019 he was taken to the Indian capital Delhi where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture by India’s National Investigation Authority (NIA). The NIA is tasked with fabricating evidence against Mr Malik as part of Modi Government’s malicious campaign to malign, stifle and discredit Mr Yasin Malik’s peaceful struggle to resolve the Kashmir issue.

Excellencies, the arrest of Mr Malik and the subsequent banning of his party, the JKLF on 22 March 2019, was in fact, to pave the way for India’s military build-up, and subsequent illegal actions against Kashmir and its people. As the most prominent and internationally acknowledged pro-independent pacifist leader of Kashmir, Mr Malik actively seeks a political resolution of the conflict which remains a constant threat to peace and a danger of nuclear confrontation in the region.

Mr Malik stood up to defy Prime Minister Modi’s ideologically driven policy of Hindutva; the manifest objective of which is to obliterate Kashmir’s history, geography, socio- cultural, and religious harmony and identity, through demographic change. Mr Malik has opposed the Indian Government’s policy to deprive the people of Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh of their fundamental citizenship rights, which had been secured with enormous sacrifices by them during their heroic struggles throughout the twentieth century.

Excellencies, prior to Mr Malik’s arrest, he stood firmly opposed to the anticipated abrogation of articles 370 and 35A.  He led peaceful political dissent. Under Mr Modi’s rule however, right of Mr Yasin Malik, and role of his party the JKLF, to organise peaceful democratic dissent, is called anti-national, even when the dissent is in Kashmir, which since 1947 is under de- facto rather than de jure Indian control. Therefore, India’s, and that of Pakistan’s presence in Kashmir, has always been contingent upon a final settlement of Kashmir’s status.  Mr Malik has engaged with previous leaders of both India and Pakistan including the current Prime Minister Mr Imran Khan when he was an opposition leader. And in the past 28 years Mr Malik has assiduously sought support, both in the sub-continent and across the world, for a peaceful and equitable resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Excellencies, within the first two years of Kashmir’s annexation, around 4 million domicile certificates under the new illegal rules have been issued to non-Kashmiris. At this rate, when Prime Minister Modi’s ultra- Hindu-nationalist BJP goes to the polls in the 2024 general election, a declaration of complete victory over Kashmir, will be proclaimed by the ideological progeny of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh- RSS- to heighten majoritarian extremism in India, at his bid to be re-elected for the third time. Success of the RSS supported BJP and Mr Modi in the 2024 Indian general elections appears assured, not only due to the socio-cultural, religious and political obliteration of the 70% Muslim population of J&K, but also at the expense of more than 225 million Muslims of India itself! Today’s India therefore, is poised to take the next step against its religious minorities, and the brunt of the highly polarised, and politicised extremist Hindutva frenzy, will inevitably be borne by the Indian Muslims.

Excellencies, since coming to power in 2014, the Modi led BJP/RSS India, has used its Kashmir policy to weaponise the majoritarian political fervour in India, to support its Hindu supremacist Hindutva ideology against religious minorities, especially the Indian Muslims. Lynching of Muslims on suspicion of eating beef is a common occurrence, and convicted murderers are garlanded by union ministers in the India of BJP/RSS era. Drastic policies by many State governments, like Karnataka, are introduced against Islamic attire including hijab and meekly upheld by the courts, since the Indian judiciary has simply become a compliant instrument of the BJP/RSS at the centre and the state level. Today’s India is a dark place for the Muslim minority. Influential OIC countries have huge economic leverage in India which does not appear to have helped the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination or eased the impact of hugely discriminatory policies of the BJP/RSS’s political chauvinism against the Indian Muslims.

Excellencies, India’s illegal action on 5 August 2019 not only betrayed people of Kashmir, but defied the UN by showing utter contempt for more than 20 UN-SC and UN-CIP resolutions, and the UN Charter, on the status of J&K and Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. With annexation, and disintegration of the 176 year old State, the BJP/RSS nexus has embarked upon its nefarious and malicious policy to decimate, and obliterate centuries’ old heritage, and identity of the interconnected heterogeneous State J&K by fomenting divisions on religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural grounds across the diverse people. India defied UN resolutions 91 of 1951, 123 and 126 of 1957, which clearly stipulated that unilateral action to change territorial and political disposition of Kashmir was prohibited for India and Pakistan.  

Excellencies, Kashmiris on both sides of the ceasefire line CfL expect that Pakistan, a prominent OIC member country which is hosting the current OIC Foreign Ministers’ conference in Islamabad, will refrain from emulating India by changing political and territorial disposition of Azad Jammu Kashmir-AJK, and Gilgit Baltistan AJK&GB. Developments around Gilgit Baltistan in Islamabad however, signify that through back channel facilitation of friendly countries, Pakistan and India may be persuaded to formalise the CfL so as to effect permanent division of Kashmir. We hope that no OIC country will either condone, or facilitate such an abominable solution, as it would amount to the annihilation of Kashmiris’ heritage, identity, and the territorial integrity of their beloved homeland- Kashmir.

Excellencies, quite poignantly therefore, India’s aggression against Kashmir on 5 August 2019 will remain etched in the collective psyche of the Kashmiris as their nakba- the great catastrophe- which the people of Palestine also suffered having been ‘ethnically cleansed’ from most of their homeland in 1948; and seven decades on Palestinians are disenfranchised and seen as strangers in their own land as a direct consequence of the settler policy of the Israeli government. Unfortunately similar fate not only awaits but has descended on the defenceless Muslim majority and their leadership in Indian occupied Kashmir with India’s Hindutva project to settle non Kashmiris.

Excellencies, India follows a similar pattern of repressive policies and laws to delegitimize Kashmiris’ internationally recognised right to self-determination. The BJP/RSS Modi government projects the legitimate freedom struggle as a struggle for Muslim religious rights. In a calculated policy to vilify and denigrate the freedom struggle, India has weaponised the Pandit minority of the greater valley of Kashmir to project the struggle as ‘Islamic terrorism’. Ironically projecting the Kashmiris, as the problem, in their own homeland, just as Israel projects the people of Palestine a problem in their homeland.

Excellencies, since the annexation on 5 August 2019 the economy and livelihood of the relatively prosperous Indian occupied part of Kashmir has nose-dived drastically. The economy of Indian occupied J&K has lost around 7 billion US dollars with more than half a million unemployed, while the economic slide continues to move downward. It is quite clear therefore that at best it is indifference and neglect, and at worst a calculated policy of the Hindu- nationalist BJP/RSS Modi Government of India to pauperise the masses in Indian occupied Kashmir. We are dismayed and disappointed that despite India’s heinous conduct in Kashmir of brutalising and inhuman treatment of the population which includes extra judicial killings, collective punishment, depriving the families of appropriate religious burial rites for their loved ones killed in all too frequent fake encounters, goes un-noticed, with very few exceptions, by the OIC countries.of the issue based on the international legality with UN resolutions, and Kashmiris’ right to self-determination Excellencies, we anticipate that the OIC will take an extended view to seek an equitable resolution. We expect the leaders of the OIC countries to support people of GB in their legitimate need for Self-Government, structured on the AJK model, and will encourage Pakistan to facilitate the needs of Gbians rather than to annex the region as a province of Pakistan. As people of the divided State including the Gbians, we fully support China-Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC. It is appropriate to expect, however, that GB’s Government must be represented as a full-fledged partner on the all-important CPEC project.

Excellencies, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to the governments and peoples of nations that support the rights and aspirations of our people’s valiant struggle for freedom. In particular our heartfelt gratitude to the people of OIC countries whose leaders during their address at the UN General assembly in September 2019, 2020 and 2021 extended their support to the people of Kashmir despite considerable opposition, and threats of trade boycott by the Hindu-nationalist majoritarian BJP/RSS Modi Government of India. Kashmiris wish to see their State become a cross road, and a bridge of peace in South Asia to unlock prosperity, and create amity in the region.

All that is required is to take the first step based on the inherent and inalienable sovereign right of more than twenty two million Kashmiris in accordance with the UN mandate. Many of the OIC countries including Pakistan, have close ties with Britain, the US and the PRC. All these powers have a direct diplomatic and economic stake in peace and prosperity of the South Asian sub-continent. A just and equitable resolution of the Kashmir issue will ensure peace and prosperity in the region to the advantage of all concerned.

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, JKLF.