Press Release: The High Commissioner (Designate) for Pakistan, Dhaka Mr. Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, has said that India’s aggression in IoJK was never an internal matter of India; Kashmir, with a number of UN resolutions promising the people of Jammu and Kashmir their right to self-determination, is an international dispute on the UNSC agenda and Pakistan is a party to it. The latest UN Security Council’s meeting stands witness to this fact. The High Commissioner (Designate) said this while addressing the Kashmir Solidarity Day meeting at the High Commission for Pakistan today. A large number of Pakistani community members and Kashmiris attended the event.

On this occasion, the High Commissioner distributed shields to the participants of an essay competition on various dimensions of the Kashmir dispute.

Highlighting the suffering of the occupied Kashmiris, who are incarcerated for the last six months, the High Commissioner observed that Indian brutalities against innocent civilians including arbitrary detentions, torture, fake encounters, enforced disappearances of Kashmiri youth as well as rape of women have not crushed the spirit of the people of the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“It was India that took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which clearly rejected occupation and called for plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. The Security Council also rejected all other Indian machinations, including the farce of election in the occupied territories as illegal establishing that the dispute needed to be resolved as per the wishes of the Kashmiri people and that Pakistan is a party to the dispute.India’s claim that Jammu Kashmir is its internal matter is, therefore, illegal and invalid”, he declared.

“Since 5 August, 2019, when Jammu and Kashmir was subjected to yet another wave of Indian atrocities, the Security Council has met thrice – latest on 15 January 2019 -and each time it highlighted the international community’s recognition of the seriousness of the on-going situation. The reign of terror that Indian has unleashed in the occupied territories must come to an end. India is in clear violation of its obligations flowing from international human rights and humanitarian law and as such all necessary international mechanisms to protect the beleaguered Kashmiri people must be activated”, Mr. Siddiqui advocated.

The High Commissioner also expressed deep concerns at the rise of fascism in South Asia. He condemned the supremacist ideologies preached by RSS ideologues as well as their modern-day fascist followers and urged the world to come together to fight fascism and racism which are rising their ugly heads in South Asia where the followers of a specific faith are being called “termites” and being threatened with aggression, expulsion, eviction and exclusion.

The High Commissioner reiterated that the government and people of Pakistan will remain committed to the just struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination.