Delimitation: AJK PM rebuffs commission on IIOJ&K

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Tanveer Ilyas on Friday reacted vehemently to reports of a "Delimitation Commission" on Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, terming it a sheer violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The AJK premier rejected the report outright and maintained that the State of Jammu and Kashmir was an internationally-recognised disputed territory.

“Indian actions are an open violation of the United Nations Resolutions. Addition of constituencies in non-Muslim province (Jammu) is a conspiracy to change the demography of the state,” he said. He called on the international community to intervene to stop the Indian atrocities in IIOJ&K.

Earlier, the Foreign Office on Thursday summoned the Indian Charge d’ Affaires and handed over a demarche conveying the Pakistan government’s categorical rejection of the report of the so-called Delimitation Commission, which was aimed at disenfranchising and disempowering the Muslim majority population in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K).“The Indian side was conveyed that this entire exercise was farcical and had already been rejected by the cross-section of political parties in IIOJ&K. Through this effort, India only wanted to lend legitimacy to its illegal actions of Aug 5, 2019,” said the Foreign Office in a late night statement.According to reports from India in "two significant recommendations, the Delimitation Commission has asked the central government to reserve two seats for 'Kashmiri Migrants (essentially Pandits)' as well as nominate representatives of people displaced from Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and settled in J&K, in the Assembly of the Union Territory.”

The reports added that there was no official provision for reservation for Kashmiri Pandits in the assembly of the erstwhile J&K state, parties would ensure that at least one or two members from the community got elected to the house, including from the Muslim-majority Valley, or nominated them.

The Foreign Office, meanwhile, made it clear to the Indian diplomat that the ulterior motive of the Indian government was evident from the fact that, under the garb of so-called delimitation, the representation of Muslims in the re-designated constituencies had been reduced to their disadvantage.

This shattered the rationale pushed by the Indian government that the 'delimitation effort' was aimed to empower the local population. However, in reality, the new electoral boundaries would further disempower, marginalise and divide the people of the occupied territory. It would only pave the way for installing yet another puppet regime backed by the BJP-RSS combine, added the Foreign Office.

It was underscored to the Indian diplomat that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute was an internationally-recognised dispute and a long-standing item on the agenda of the UN Security Council. Any illegal, unilateral and mischievous attempt by India to allow disproportionately higher electoral representation to the Hindu population to the detriment of the Muslim population is a mockery of all norms of democracy, morality and India’s obligations under the UN Security Council Resolutions and international law.

The Foreign Office also stressed that the Indian government must refrain from bringing about any illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, stop forthwith its oppression in the IIOJ&K, and let the Kashmiri people determine their own future through a free and fair plebiscite under the UN auspices as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.