Masood fears Gujrat like riots in occupied Kashmir
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MUZAFFARABAD: President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Sardar Masood Khan Monday expressed fear that after failure in so-called preemptive strikes in AJK, Indian Prime Minister Narendera Modi might carry out Gujrat like riots in Kashmir to satisfy his people to achieve desired goals in upcoming elections.
Talking to APP, he said that Kashmir was core issue between India and Pakistan. Masood Khan was of the view that now the world was concerned about Kashmir because they consider deteriorating situation in Kashmir a threat to regional security, adding that the world was looking at the situation through the prism of nuclear escalation and security paradigm.
Criticizing Narendra Modi of his tacit approval to the deadly riots in Gujrat state of India in 90s, the president said that Modi had not been charged or convicted for these accusations. He expressed his apprehensions that a similar kind of atmosphere was being created in Kashmir in the wake of Pulwama attack.
“My fear is that in the aftermath of the current tension, when the world looks the other way, the Indian government might start a massacre in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, which must be averted at all cost,” he stressed. To a question about militancy in the region, Masood said Pakistan had been fighting terrorism for the past two decades and was succeeded in breaking backbone of terrorist outfits. He said that whole state of Pakistan was fighting terrorism.
“We would not like to relocate these terrorist outfits to Jammu and Kashmir,” he made clear saying in the past decade or so, the freedom movement in Kashmir was assumed a predominantly political character. “This is the real face of the freedom movement in Kashmir. According to high-ranking Indian security officials, the number of militants in Kashmir is very small. The statistics that they issued last December said there were about 240 militants there, pitting against 700,000 Indian troops,” he pointed out.
“Nobody wants that the movement should be assumed a militant character.” “We need to raise consciousness about the unintended consequences of a war between Pakistan and India,” he said. Calling upon international community to avert the war between two nuclear states, he said that the world must realize that the core issue between the two countries was the Kashmir conflict that must be resolved for durable peace and stability in the region.
The global community should activate multilateral diplomacy for the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions on the dispute (of Kashmir) or find new ways to explore common ground for a win-win solution, Khan said. He said that people of Jammu and Kashmir are concerned; they want their aspirations to be respected and to be given a choice in determining their own political future.
About the call for a boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions against India, the president said the Western countries being upholders and promoters of human rights must look at Kashmir dispute through the prism of human rights, self-determination and international humanitarian law rather through the prism of their economic interests with India. He said that Kashmiris are being killed every day.
So that’s why the international community must mount pressure against India. Moral pressure, political, diplomatic, and they must use their economic tools to amplify this kind of pressure. The AJK President said America could play a very important role in defusing the situation. “We welcome an American initiative because the region doesn’t afford any war.
APP
