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Thursday March 28, 2024

Indian forces fail to stop Kashmiris to celebrate Pak I-Day in Srinagar

By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
August 15, 2018

ISLAMABAD: The massive presence of Indian occupation army in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) couldn’t stop young Kashmiris from celebrating Pakistan Independence Day through public displays of allegiance to Pakistan on Tuesday.

They observed the day with their brethren in Pakistan and across the world. The international Kashmir lobby group Youth Forum for Kashmir (YFK) has maintained that “Kashmir is the unfinished agenda of Pakistan’s independence.” Kashmiris passed a resolution in Srinagar on 19th July, 1947 to join Pakistan. This resolution was passed by established Kashmiri leaders, and came a month before the actual declaration of Pakistan’s independence.

The YFK has reminded that the Indian independence day is celebrated as Black Day by Kashmiris all over the world today (Wednesday). India has no moral or legal grounds to celebrate Independence Day when it snatches the basic rights of Kashmiris and brutalizing them mercilessly. “If world want to see what Kashmiris aspire for, have a look that they celebrate 14th August and mourn 15 August,” the YFK said in a statement issued here on Tuesday. The YFK said that it insists that India’s military occupation should come to end immediately. It has called on New Delhi to meet international standards of justice and fair play by withdrawing the occupation army from Srinagar and all other Kashmiri cities and towns.

The YFK has demanded that India should allow Kashmiris to take charge of their government as a first step towards resolving the international dispute in accordance with UNSC resolutions.

The forum has appealed to the European Parliament (EP), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), OSCE, ASEAN, Saarc, the Arab League, and the OIC to accord recognition the right of Kashmiri people to self-determination through their rejoinders to India and view it as the unfinished agenda of the freedom movement that led to the independence of both Pakistan and Indian in 1947 through a democratic and legal struggle where people voted to join either Pakistan or India after the departure of British forces from the region.

India sought UN help in 1948, culminating in the Security Council Resolution of January 5, 1949 that guarantee plebiscite to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The YFK has reminded the world of the democratic nature of this resolution. The first clause reads: ‘The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.’

It has urged the United Nations Security Council to seize itself of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Kashmir, where India’s military occupation authorities have been found involved in arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, denial of basic civil liberties, and the use of rape as a weapon of war. “We urge that the world body should play its key role in resolving the Kashmir dispute for perpetual peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia,” the statement added.

The YFK is a non-partisan, international non-governmental organisation, working for the peaceful resolution of Kashmir conflict in accordance with United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.