On August 13, 1948, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and giving Kashmiris the right to join Pakistan or India. Both Pakistan and India accepted the resolution, but India backed out later.
PRESIDENT of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Mohammad Masood Khan addressed on Friday an International Seminar On Kashmir in Kashmir House Islamabad; Text of his speech:
I want to thank the Speaker of the National Assembly for his dynamic leadership on Kashmir in Pakistan and abroad especially in the parliamentary forums. We convey our gratitude to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his seminal statement on Kashmir. He spoke as a statesmen indicating the way forward.
I commend Ms Shaza Fatima Khawaja and Ms. Romina Khurshid Alam for their hard work to organize this first ever international parliamentary seminar on Jammu and Kashmir. Thanks to their efforts, foreign delegates are attending this conference and so many young men and women, lawmakers, media-persons and diverse actors of civil society are participating in it.
Jammu and Kashmir will not remain in bondage in perpetuity. It will be freed by the people of Kashmir with the support of Pakistan and the international community.
The valleys and mountains, forests and orchards, rivers and rivulets and lakes, farms and bazaars, cities, townships and villages of the Indian Occupied Kashmir – all are resonating with one one voice, one slogan, one motto – Azadi (freedom). Men and women of all ages and especially children are crying in unison – Go India; Go Back.
And there is a mighty reason for that. In the past several months, Kashmir has lived through yet another apocalypse. Casting aside all norms of humanity, Indian occupation forces have killed hundreds, mass blinded hundreds, and grievously injured thousands. Women have been raped and dishonoured; men are picked up for for incarceration without charges, without trial. Torture and extrajudicial killings are rampant. Kashmir is a prison. People in their own land are being frisked, persecuted, brutalized, killed, and used as human shields. Children have not been spared. Men disappear; half widows wait for ever.
Several deaths, blindings and thousands injuries are directly attributable to the use of 12 gauge shotguns firing pellet guns. Mass blindings have been used for the first time on this scale as an instrument of war. India is writing a text book on gross and consistent violations of human rights anywhere in the world.
Since 1947, half a million Kashmiri Muslims have been massacred by the Indian occupation forces. These are unconscionable human rights violations; these are crimes against humanity; this is genocide. And the irony of our times is nobody has come to the rescue of the Kashmiris, the victim; and an even a bigger irony is that many powerful nations are siding with the victimizer, India.