Impartial plebiscite on Kashmir Pakistan’s ultimate goal: Shah Mehmood Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Pakistan“We will not let anyone take away Kashmir from the Kashmiris. This cause and the struggle is just, sacred and non-negotiable,” the foreign minister said in his address Wednesday at a seminar on ’ organised by Institute of Regional Studies. The foreign minister said the people and government of Pakistan remained committed to extending full support to the just cause of Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.

He said the Kashmiris’s re-invasion and re-occupation of the illegally occupied territory through barrel of the gun had further alienated the Kashmiri people. Over 900,000 occupation troops have perpetuated the worst reign of terror upon the innocent Kashmiris, he added.

It has been 18 months, since the continuous military siege, communications blockade, media blackout, and unprecedented restrictions on the fundamental freedoms were imposed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK), he added.

Qureshi mentioned that extra-judicial killing of young Kashmiris in fake encounters and staged cordon-and-search operations had become a regular occurrence in IIOJK with over 300 innocent Kashmiris martyred by the Indian occupation forces since August 5, 2019. He said senior Kashmiri leadership including founding leader of Kashmiri organization Dukhtaran-i-Millat and the Iron Lady of Kashmir Asiya Andrabi, leader and founder of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party Shabbir Ahmed Shah, prominent leaders such as Yasin Malik, Masarat Alam Bhat, Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie and others remain jailed including the infamous Tihar Jail in India on fake, malicious and trumped up charges.

He said the real objective of the RSS-BJP regime behind its illegal actions of August 5 was to change the demographic structure of the occupied territory in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions and the international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention.

He said the world was witnessing rise of ultra-nationalism, racism, fascism, religious hatred and intolerance in India in the garb of Hindutva supremacist ideology, championed by the RSS-inspired BJP government, which has been using violence to achieve its illegitimate objectives.

This Hindutva ideology is not only a threat to the Kashmiris, but to India’s India - ranging from policies of systematically disenfranchising Muslims to physical assaults and other anti-Muslim actions under ‘Love Jihad’.