*ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday rejects the Indian ministry of externalaffairs remarks regarding the recent visit of a group of Delhi-baseddiplomats to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. *
In a statement, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said thatsuch guided tours to the occupied territory and meetings with hand-pickedpeople are designed to create a smoke-screen to divert attention from theegregious human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and India’s illegalmeasures to change the demographic structure of the occupied valley.
He maintained that the statement by UN special rapporteur on minorityissues and special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief on theconcluding day of this visit has rightly highlighted the Indian attempts to“alter the demographics of the region and undermine the minorities’ abilityto exercise effectively their human rights”.
The spokesperson said that no sham electoral exercise in occupied Kashmircan substitute the UN Security Council mandated plebiscite under the UNauspices.
He said that India cannot even feign ‘normalcy’ with continuing militarysiege and restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of the Kashmiri people.The people’s rights to assembly, free movement, freedom of expression andeven to safety of life and property are routinely violated in the IIOJKwith impunity.
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Hafeez Chaudhri said the so-called ‘development’ narrative is also anattempt to mislead the international community. It is meant to obfuscatethe machinations to further disempower and disenfranchise the Kashmiripeople who are being reduced to a minority in their own land through theongoing demographic restructuring in violation of relevant UNSC resolutionsand the international law, including the 4th Geneva convention.
Pakistan reiterates its call to the international community to urge Indiato allow the Kashmiris to exercise their inalienable right toself-determination as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Councilresolutions, he added.
