DND Special Report
In a bid to show solidarity with the Kashmiri people and rededicate all energies and resources to continue the liberation movement, Kashmir’s Accession to Pakistan Day will be observed on Sunday (July 19, 2020).
This day is observed by Kashmiris living all over the world in the renewal of the historical resolution of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan passed by the people of Kashmir State.
On July 19, 1947, true representatives of the combined voice of Kashmiris unanimously passed the resolution of Kashmir’s Accession to Pakistan during a meeting of All J&K Muslim Conference (AJ&KMC) at the residence of Sardar M Ibrahim Khan in Srinagar.
The All Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference on July 19, 1947, adopted a historic resolution in Srinagar, demanding the then Dogra rulers to materialize the accession of the Jammu Kashmir state to Pakistan honouring the decision and point of view of the majority population of the Muslim majority in the state.
“Otherwise Kashmiris would have no option except waging an armed struggle for the liberation of their motherland from the clutches the Dogras,” the resolution declared.
The resolution reflected the aspirations of the majority of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to protect their religious, economic, and political rights.
Seven decades have passed but people of Indian Occupied Kashmir are still struggling to join Pakistan and come out of clutches of Indian occupied forces but New Delhi has been denying them this right while United Nations (UN) has virtually failed to execute its own resolutions.
Click this link to know about UN Resolutions over Kashmir Issue
The design to forcibly take Kashmir away began to unfold on August 16, 1947, with the announcement of the Radcliffe Boundary Award.
It gave the Gurdaspur District—a majority Muslim area to India to provide a land route to the Indian armed forces to move into Kashmir. Sensing the situation, Kashmiris revolted against the Maharaja. Viceroy Lord Mountbatten ordered armed forces to land in Srinagar.
Indian forces invaded Srinagar on October 27, 1947, and forcibly occupied Jammu and Kashmir in utter violation of the partition plan and against the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
When Pakistan responded militarily against the Indian aggression, on December 31, 1947, India made an appeal to the UN Security Council to intervene and a ceasefire ultimately came into effect on January 01, 1949, following UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir.
UN Security Council adopted resolution 47 (1948) on April 21, 1948, which promised a plebiscite under UN auspices to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine whether they wish to join Pakistan or India.
On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its promise of holding a plebiscite. Instead, in March 1965, the Indian Parliament passed a bill, declaring Kashmir a province of India-an an integral part of the Indian union.
Ironically, despite a lapse of seven decades, Kashmiris are still struggling and sacrificing to achieve their alienable right under the UN resolutions.
Kashmir Valley is one of the most heavily militarized regions in the world with Indian 7 million armed security forces which are perpetrating various forms of state terrorism on the innocent Kashmiris.
Since 1989, a deliberate campaign by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces against the Kashmiris has been manifested in brutal tactics such as crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, rapes of women and girls and even young boys, massacre, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, torture, disappearances, breaking the legs, and killing of persons through fake encounters.
Indian Occupied Kashmir After August 5, 2019
Since August 5, 2019, Kashmiri struggle has entered into a grave scenario after the Indian government abrogated its own Constitution and included Indian Occupied Kashmir as a state of Union instead of a State with special features and different future.
Human Rights Watch Report released on August 6, 2019, raised serious issues of the Human Rights situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
The report says that Indian decision to revoke special status for the state provided under Article 370 of the Indian constitution prompted condemnation from political leaders in Kashmir and generated tensions in the state and Kashmir has witnessed a spike in violent protests.
Indian security forces use excessive force to respond to protests, including using pellet-firing shotguns as a crowd-control weapon, even though they have caused a large number of protester deaths and injuries.
The report adds that the Indian troops have seldom been held accountable despite serious allegations of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances.
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) gives soldiers effective immunity from prosecution for serious human rights abuses. The government has failed to review or repeal the law, despite repeated recommendations from several government-appointed commissions, UN bodies, and experts, and national and international rights groups.
Genocide Watch International also released a horrific report titled “Genocide Alert for Kashmir, India”
Genocide Watch International also released a horrific report titled “Genocide Alert for Kashmir, India” on August 16, 2019, and called upon the United Nations and its members to warn India not to commit genocide in Kashmir. The report confirmed that the Genocide of Kashmiris has been going on in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
“Women’s Voice: Fact-Finding Report on Kashmir”
Fact-Finding Reports conducted by Indian civil society members about Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) further help to understand the gravity of atrocities being faced by Kashmiris in IoK.
The titled “Women’s Voice: Fact-Finding Report on Kashmir” was documented from 17 to 21 September 2019 by a five-membered team comprising of Annie Raja, Kawaljit Kaur, Pankhuri Zaheer from National Federation Indian Women, Poonam Kaushik from Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan and Syeda Hameed from Muslim Women’s Forum. The team visited Srinagar, several villages in the districts of Shopian, Pulwama, and Bandipora.
This in-depth and detailed Report can help to understand how Muslim Kashmiris are living in dreadful circumstances.
Only one part of the Report can compel researchers to read the detail Report.
Report says:
Boys as young as 14 or 15 are taken away, tortured, some for as long as 45 days. Their papers are taken away, families not informed. Old FIR’s are not closed. Phones are snatched; collect it from the army camp they are told. No one in his senses ever went back, even for a slightly expensive phone. A woman recounted how they came for her 22-year-old son. But since his hand was in plaster they took away her 14-year-old instead. In another village, we heard that two men were brutally beaten. No reason. One returned, after 20 days, broken in body and spirit. The other is still in custody. One estimate given to us was 13000 boys lifted during this lockdown. They don’t even spare our rations. During random checking of houses which occurs at all odd hours of the night, the army persons come in and throw out the family.
The Fact-Finding Report (FFR) prepared by Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) titled “Voices of Kashmiri Women”
The Fact-Finding Report (FFR) prepared by Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) titled “Voices of Kashmiri Women” is not different than the previously released FFR conducted by the National Federation Indian Women, Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan and Muslim Women’s Forum of India. The Report was released on October 11, 2019.
The WSS Report points out that sexual abuse is used as a tool by the Indian Army in IOK as it (Indian Army) does in Manipur, Gujarat, Wakapalli, Khairlanji, Singur, Kandhamal and Dantewada to humiliate those who stand for freedom or for justice.
A four-member team (Kiran Shaheen, Nandini Rao, Pramodini Pradhan, and Shivani Taneja) visited the Kashmir Valley (read as Indian Occupied Kashmir) on September 23-28, 2019. Their aim was to interact with the people, especially women and children, to listen to their voices and understand the present conditions since the abrogation of Article 370 by the Indian government. The team traveled across the districts of Srinagar and Shopian to the South, and Kupwara and Baramullah to the North.
The team gathered reality check information as part of fact-finding from the people of various walks of life – older and younger women stuck in their homes, school teachers, hospital functionaries, hawkers, scrap-dealers, roadside vendors, shopkeepers, orchard owners, taxi drivers, auto drivers, lawyers, journalists, activists and school and college students.
Some of the important pointers of WSS Report are as follow:
- The entire valley is reeling under a silence that is anything but normal.
- The risks of being picked up are real.
- Freedom of speech has been severely curtailed.
- The situation is altogether different from what the Indian state and media have portrayed.
- Children are (had been) picked up, detained, and sometimes sexually tortured for days.
- Some children are sent back home in a state of terror and others continue to be in the custody of the security forces without any official entry being made of their detention. Families do not know whether their young men and boys are being detained in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan or Haryana. Authorities demand money ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 200,000 from families to release their relatives.
- Women and girls live in constant fear of molestation and abuse.
- In localities of Srinagar, women and girls are sent to sleep in ‘safer’ zones by their families where police raids are not so frequent.
- The psychological stress caused by the continuing occupation has led to high levels of anxiety and depression levels, and the people consume anti-depressant drugs and carry them on their person at all times.
- Anyone can be detained even while crossing the road, playing football, sleeping or having tea.
- The Indian security forces in Kashmir enjoy complete impunity and cases of encounters, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, illegal detentions, torture, entering houses at any time of day or night, breaking windows and destroying property are now normal in IOK.
- Impunity is offered through AFSPA, PSA and other draconian laws, ineffective judicial mechanisms whenever justice is sought, and indifference continues unabated.
- The people have lost faith in the judiciary. They say that even habeas corpus petitions are not being heard by the J&K High Court.
Fact-Finding Report KASHMIR: Imprisoned Resistance released on October 31, 2019
This Report was work of a team of 11 senior lawyers, trade union and human rights activists, and a psychiatrist who visited Kashmir from 28 September to October 4, 2019.
Report indicates that Indian soldiers sexually abuse Kashmiris and it was observed in Report that the blatant abuse of power, the violent aggression and extreme forms of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) unleashed on the Kashmiri people has caused deep and destructive trauma that may take generations to heal.
The report indicates that cases of illegal detentions of minors and adults alike. There are cases of torture and sexual abuse by the armed forces. In some instances, the torture is carried out with loudspeakers on, for the surrounding community to hear the victim scream as he is getting brutalised.
It seems that the non-condemnation of these Indian massive human rights violations and non-interference for the settlement of this issue by the so-called civilized international community, especially the US have further encouraged New Delhi to keep on going with its state terrorism on the armless Kashmiri masses. Ignorance of the issue by the US-led Western countries involves the risk of nuclear war between Pakistan and India.
A thousand nooses of slavery have been untied free till now.
For some reason, I still believed that blind repressive dark rage will come to an end.
I still believed that I could breathe in the free air of the heavens.
I still believed that my fortunes would take a turn and I would be free
I still held this belief.’
(Excerpted from Bashir Dada’s poem ‘A Thousand Revolutions’ originally written in Urdu)
