Pakistan on Sunday rejected the “irresponsible” remarks by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tweet condemning the recent Indian steps to illegally change the demographic structure of the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK).
“The latest Indian action, aim at further usurping the fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people through changing the domicile law at a time when the world is busy fighting COVID-19 pandemic, once again betrays the BJP leadership’s rank political opportunism and moral bankruptcy,” the Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement.
She said that India’s incessant regurgitation of the claim that Occupied Jammu and Kashmir was an “internal affair” would neither turn this falsehood into truth nor make this illegality valid.
The spokesperson said the IOJK was an internationally recognised “disputed” territory, as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions. These resolutions stipulate that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices.
“No amount of Indian sophistry could obfuscate India’s state-terrorism in IOJ&K and the RSS-inspired “Hindutva” agenda being imposed by the BJP government. Nor would India’s use of brutal force ever succeed in breaking the will of the Kashmiri people fighting for their inalienable right to self-determination,” she remarked.
It should also be clear to India that, for their part, Pakistan and its leadership would never flinch in their support for the just and legitimate cause of the Kashmiri people, she added.
Meanwhile, at least nine Kashmiris were martyred in two incidents in Indian-occupied Kashmir, authorities said Sunday, as a lockdown was enforced to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Three Indian soldiers were also killed. Occupied Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region in the Himalayas, had already been under a long-running curfew after India on August 5 scrapped its special status as a semi-autonomous state.
Indian army spokesperson Colonel Rajesh Kalia early Sunday confirmed the martyrdom of five Kashmiris in the northern Keran area close to the Line of Control (LoC). Several soldiers were critically injured, he added.
The fighting came within 24 hours of another gun battle in the southern Kulgam area that had left four dead. Police had said all four were from the local area.
