Saghar seeks world leaders’ attention towards India’s settler colonialism in IOK

Islamabad: The Acting chairman Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party Mehmood Ahmed Saghar has urged the P-5 countries to take effective notice of India’s settler colonialism drive intended to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers in the occupied Kashmir.

In a joint communiqué addressed the leaders of P5 countries and the UN chief Mr. António Guterres, the DFP leader said that the events unfolding in the disputed territory reflect settler-colonialism policies of the Indian state, which he said violate the sanctity of the UN resolutions on Kashmir.

Referring to 5th August 2019 move by the Indian state he said that the contentious move was an act of aggression and an outrageous assault on the rights of the people of the state, who he said have been time and again pushed into throes of instability and perpetual violence by the Indian state.

“Strip the territory of its autonomous status by revoking Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution last year was a deep-rooted conspiracy to erase the Kashmiris’ political, cultural and national identity”,  the communiqué said adding that the attempted annexation of Jammu and Kashmir has pushed the region into a quagmire of uncertainty. Caught between conflict and the coronavirus the joint communiqué noted that a population of nearly 8 million people has been under virtual siege for the past one year.

“While the world governments are hectically engaged in combating the coronavirus the Indian government has remorselessly used the COVID-19 situation as an opportunity to extend its colonial agenda in the restive region by enforcing a set of new laws that go against the rights and interests of the indigenous population”, the communiqué added.

Referring to India’s nefarious designs the communiqué further said, “To wipe out the state’s homogeneous character New Delhi has now started an inclusive settler-colonialism drive under the garb of new domicile law to replace the indigenous population with a new society of settlers”.

“With the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution, which had restricted land ownership to Kashmiri state subjects, a series of new laws were enforced in the state that besides opening floodgates for Indian settlers will enable them to have more capital to take over Kashmiri lands”, the communiqué said.

He pointed out that the Indian government has now come up with another dangerous plan that gives sweeping powers to the Indian army to acquire more land in Kashmir. The motive behind this move he said was to establish settlements in the so-called strategic areas to house the Indian citizens thereafter granting them citizenship under the new domicile laws.

The amendments in the law he said will expedite the process of demographic changes in the occupied territory. “Along with land grab, capitalist accumulation and resource extraction there are other dangerous aspects of settler-colonial state formations, which pose a serious existential threat to Kashmiris”, Saghar said adding that apart from these tactical moves the wanton killings of youth, systematic genocide & policy of dehumanization of indigenous people on the other hand depict terrifying and dark aspects of the Indian military occupation.

Urging the world leaders to stop Indian from changing demography in the disputed territory, he said, “Kashmir remains to be the core issue that needs to be resolved for the sake of durable peace and stability in the region”.  Urging p5 countries to take serious notice of the fast deteriorating political and human rights situation in the region he said that influential world governments must develop pressure on the government of India to reverse these actions, which he said were in open contravention of the UN resolutions prohibiting the parties concerned from taking any unilateral action aimed at changing the disputed nature of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.