Kashmiris and Sikhs protest outside UN building during Indian FM speech
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UNITED NATIONS: (APP) Raising vociferous anti-India slogans and waving placards, hundreds of Kashmiri and Pakistani community members Monday staged a demonstration in front of the United Nations building to condemn the killings of their brethren in Indian Occupied Kashmir to push the U.N. to implements its resolutions on the longstanding dispute, as India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj addressed the General Assembly.
READ MORE: Kashmiris to protest outside UN during Indian FM Sushma Swaraj address
A group of Sikhs Joined the rally on a sunny day in New York which also demanded self-determination for the Sikhs in Indian Punjab as well as for the Kashmiri people.
All Kashmiri parties based in New York and the surrounding areas came together to voice their outrage over the July killing of popular Kashmiri youth leader Burhan Wani that triggered protests across the occupied state.
Resorting to brutal tactics, Indian security forces have killed over 100 Kashmiri civilians, wounding thousands more, with 150 people blinded by the use of gun pellets by Indian security forces.
The demonstrators carried photographs of Kashmiri youth injured by pellets and condemned the use of deadly force against peaceful demonstrators.
"India: Out of Kashmir", "We Want Freedom From India”, Wake Up, Wake Up-- UN", "Kashmir: Nuclear Flashpoint" and "India: End Bloodshed" were some of the placards the protesters were holding.
READ MORE: Kashmiris to stage protest rally against India in front of UN General Assembly
Speakers at the rally strongly condemned the killing spree in the Indian occupied Kashmir, a U.N.-recognized disputed territory, and called on the world powers and the United Nations to use their influence on India to the stop the genocide.
They also voiced grave concern over the shut down of media offices in Kashmir and cutting off all communication links with the state, saying it was a grave violation of human rights and freedom of information.
Among the speakers were prominent Kashmiri leaders like Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry, Ghulam Nabi Fai, Capt (r) Shaheen Butt and Sardar Sawar Khan, a former member of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council.
They called on India to vacate its aggression in Kashmir and allow the Kashmiri people to decide their future in order to pave the way for peace and stability in the sub-continent.
Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif's historic address to the UN General Assembly was also praised as it had focused international attention on the Kashmir dispute.
READ MORE: Kashmiris demanding freedom from India; says Journalists team from New Dehli
Barrister Chaudhry said that the Kashmiri struggle had reached a decisive moment as he called for complete unity among Kashmiri people. The freedom was not far off.
"There can be no peace in the region without the resolution of Kashmir dispute," Fai said.
"The most poignant aspect of the situation is the acute suffering of the whole population caused by indefinite curfews in disregard of normal life as well as detention of the Kashmiri leadership," he said. "This is a situation without precedent in South Asian subcontinent and few parallels in the whole world."
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Mir regretted that the Security Council was paying inadequate attention, while Indian soldiers were maiming and massacring people in cities, towns and villages of Kashmir. "The valiant people of Kashmir are doing what they can and what they must- they are taking to the streets in defiance of the barbaric laws of the center and its hand picked puppets in Srinagar".
Sardar Sawar Khan told the crowd that a systematic campaign of terror had been launched against the people of Kashmir.
A deliberate targeting of youth with the intent to crush the movement should be of grave concern to leaders of the civilized nations, including the UN. He called for implementing U.N. resolutions on Kashmir, saying their struggle for freedom will not stop until the resolution of decades-old dispute.
Captain (r) Shaheen Butt drew attention to reports of the entire population of major towns in the Valley of Kashmir, defying curfews, coming out the streets with the demand for a speedy implementation of the pledge solemnly extended to them by India and Pakistan and the UN.
Shaheen Butt said that India has turned Kashmir into a big prison and its people are being held incommunicado.
