Kathmandu, 31 October: Pakistan Embassy organized a talk programme on ‘Jammu Kashmir Dispute and Recent Developments’. The two-hour-long programme was attended by some hundred and fifty intellectuals, writers and analysts as well as representatives of human rights organizations.
Ambassador Mazhar Javed recounted the historical perspective of the dispute and the Kashmiris’ struggle for their right of self-determination which had been promised to them under several UN Security Council resolutions.
The Ambassador highlighted the human rights violations taking place in Indian Occupied Kashmir after the Indian Government’s illegal decision to revoke Article 370 on August 5, which Ambassador Javed said, violated the UN resolutions. The people of Jammu Kashmir have been subjected to an inhuman curfew, thousands of arbitrary detentions mostly of teenagers, nights raids, rape, torture and clampdown on the internet and cell phone.
Speaking at the event, Dr Surindra K.C expressed serious concern on the media/information blockade, use of pellet guns and arrest of Kashmiri leadership. India has come under serious criticism by UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and other international human rights organizations for its repressive measures in the disputed territory.
It was noted at the talk programme that holding of the UN Security Council meeting in August to discuss the Jammu Kashmir dispute had conclusively negated the Indian propaganda that Kashmir was its internal issue. Kashmir dispute was an international dispute which needed to be resolved according to UN Security Council Resolutions.
Talk by speakers was followed by an interactive session. Two documentaries, one of the genesis of the dispute and the other on international reactions to ongoing human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir were screened.
The unresolved status of Jammu and Kashmir dispute has posed the biggest challenge to peace in South Asia, ever since the two countries came into being in 1947 and the UN Security Council passed several resolutions for resolving the dispute in accordance with the wishes of the people of Jammu Kashmir.
