AJK president welcomes OIC support for Kashmiris

NEW YORK: Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry on Saturday lauded the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s "continued, unequivocal support" for the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people when he met OIC Permanent Observer to the UN Agshin Mehdiyev in New York.

According to a press release, the president noted that the recent adoption of the Joint Communique at the ministerial level meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu & Kashmir on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UNGA is yet another manifestation of the 57-member organization of longstanding support to the Kashmir cause.

Chaudhry said he had come to New York to apprise the international community about the continued atrocities and gross human right violations committed by over 900,000 Indian troops deployed in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). He said the situation in the occupied territory has deteriorated since the illegal Indian decision of August 5, 2019 which eliminated the statehood status of the occupied territory. Since then, he said, India has imprisoned the entire Kashmiri leadership, illegally detained thousands of Kashmiri youths including women and children, summarily executed young boys, put down protests violently and burnt down entire neighbourhoods and villages.

He said India is carrying out a systematic and carefully crafted settler colonial project in IIOJK, highlighting that the Indian government has already issued over 4.2 million fake domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris with the aim to change the demography of the occupied territory.