Sherry says Kashmir isn’t India’s internal matter

ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary leader of the PPP in the Senate and chairperson of Senate’s Foreign Affair Committee Senator Sherry Rehman said Kashmir is not India’s internal matter as it is a fundamental right of the Kashmiri people to decide who governs them and how, and this inalienable right is being denied to them.

“The resolution of the Kashmir dispute is essentially a political choice that the powers that be in the international community have yet to make despite the unacceptable and bloody colonisation of illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” she said while speaking on an international webinar on Kashmir’s Youm-e-Istehsal, a day of solidarity observed across Pakistan to mark the second anniversary of the revocation of the autonomous status of illegally occupied Kashmir. PPP Parliamentarians vice president Sherry Rehman said since August 5, 2019, the Modi government has wreaked havoc with singularity of purpose while the world watched, and it is now attempting to change the demography of the Muslim majority valley by deploying troops to intimidate and arrest critics, while trying to force a military solution of the dispute.

She said the human rights violations are a chilling example of state terrorism being given dangerous impunity as well, and no one is unable to do anything to change that because international observers are denied access. “To date, thousands of innocent Kashmiris are still languishing in prisons and torture chambers, while equal amounts have disappeared in mass graves,” she added. She said detentions, draconian laws, and unlawful actions of the Modi government have made survival difficult in an atmosphere of constant fear for Kashmiris, who are actually living in the world’s largest open prison but the Hindutva regime is focusing on muddling dissent and contain the story”.

She said Modi government is an apartheid regime, but the international community, with a few honourable exceptions selectively chooses to ignore the suffering. “Had it been another country, it would have been under sanctions by now,” she further added. She said it is extremely important for us to be strategising together on what we can do but also highlighting and amplifying our voices. “We must not let the world forget about the atrocities taking place in occupied Kashmir and speak about it on all local and international forums,” she said.

She said Kashmir should always be a priority on our agendas. “As parliamentarians it is our responsibility to highlight the stories of our Kashmiri brothers and sisters,” she added. She said it is shocking that despite being one of the most persecuted communities in the world, there is complete silence when it comes to the rights of Kashmiris.