Srinagar, June 29: Kashmir’s separatist leaders Saturday sharply reacted to the External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s statement that Kashmir was an internal issue of India, calling the statement as a “condemnable attempt to distort history.”
Reacting to Khurshid’s statement, the chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front said, “Kashmir is a world-acknowledged dispute which was not taken to the United Nations by Pakistan or Kashmiris but by the Indian leadership themselves. It is not an internal issue of any country or border dispute between any two countries. Therefore, no highly educated person and politician should make a joker of himself by calling it an internal issue.”
“At the United Nations the world acknowledged Kashmir as a dispute and pledged to provide Kashmiris a chance to determine their future democratically. The government of India also accepted this and the issue was even taken to the First Parliament,” he said.
In the Parliament, according to Malik, the first Prime Minster of India Jawahar Lal Nehru told the Parliamentarians: “Kashmiris are not a sellable commodity and nobody can purchase them. They will be given a chance to decide about their future and if they opt against India, we will be sad but will accept their verdict.”
“Now when Kashmiris demanded fulfillment of these pledges and asked for their right, the Nehru’s India started oppressing them. New Delhi used incentives, intimidations, temptation, military and police force, repression and torture, killings and rapes, destruction and every other means to suppress the Kashmiris’ voices for freedom. The government of India suppressed the people’s peaceful revolutions of 1990, 2008, 2009 and 2010 by military force but all these measures proved futile and world acknowledged Kashmir issue remained alive as ever,” said Malik,
The chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G) Syed Ali Shah Geelani termed the statement of Khurshid as unrealistic and said “Kashmir is neither the crown of India nor a family dispute.”
“Kashmir is an uncertainty-gripped disputed land and its disputed nature has been accepted by the entire world and even the governments of India and Pakistan,” Geelani said in a statement here.
“Pakistan is a party to the dispute as one part of Kashmir is under the control of Islamabad. Pakistan cannot be sidelined whenever there is a talk for resolution of Kashmir issue,” Geelani said.
“We denounce the statement of Khurshid that Kashmir is an internal issue. The statement is contrary to the historical realities of Kashmir issue and an open expression of continuation of New Delhi’s traditional obduracy based on unrealistic policy,” said the Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
Accusing the Centre of adopting “double standards” on Kashmir, the Hurriyat said on the one hand the Government talks of initiating negotiations with Pakistan to solve the Kashmir issue and on the other, it issues statements whereby it terms Kashmir as internal issue. “Khurshid’s statement is an effort to brush aside the bitter political realties associated with Kashmir. Khurshid should know that Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute,” the separatist amalgam said, adding “UN considers it as a dispute and has passed several resolutions in this regard.”
Advocating resolution of the issue in accordance with the “wishes and aspirations” of the people of Kashmir, the Hurriyat asked New Delhi to shun its “stubbornness and forcible control” of Kashmir through military might and instead take bold steps to solve the issue.
The chairman of Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Shabir Ahmad Shah, who was placed under house today, asserted that Kashmir was never part of India.
Reacting sharply Khurshid’s statement, Shah, in a statement today, said, “Khurshid should see the history of Kashmir so that he may come to know that Kashmir was never part of India. Had Kashmir been an internal problem of India, the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru would not have taken it (Kashmir issue) to the United Nations.”
“Pakistan is supporting us at political, diplomatic and moral levels,” Shah said, adding that “statement of Salman Khurshid that nobody should interfere in the Kashmir means that they want to destroy Kashmir from the world map and take forcible possession of our lands.”
Source: Greater Kashmir
