Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry earlier today accused the Indian government of deliberately altering the demographic makeup of Jammu and Kashmir by settling non-state citizens in Indian-held Kashmir and turning its Muslim majority into a minority by dividing the population on ethnic, religious and communal lines.
“No elections in Indian-held Kashmir could be a substitute to the plebiscite under the auspices of the UN,” Chaudhry told ambassadors of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states who are currently posted in Pakistan .
Briefing the envoys on the eve of Kashmir Day, a grim faced foreign secretary referred to the actions taken by Indian security forces to suppress the indigenous Kashmiri movement against Indian rule. He also quoted staggering figures of Kashmiris killed, women widowed and raped and children orphaned in human rights violations in the region.
He stressed that peace in the region would remain elusive without the resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with UN resolutions that call for a free and fair election to determine the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The foreign secretary emphasised that OIC as a body of 57 countries with the world’s one-fifth population and Gross Domestic Profit (GDP) with many trillion dollars could influence India to fulfill its obligations under UN resolutions, de-militarise Indian-held Kashmir and refrain from committing human rights violations.
