Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan is a long unfulfilled dream of Kashmiris: Masood

ISLAMABAD, July 19: The President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Sardar Masood Khan has said that the resolution of accession to Pakistan adopted on July 19, 1947, was a referendum through which the people of Jammu and Kashmir had decided their political destiny.

“The day of July 19, is an important day in the history of Kashmir as on this day in 1947, accession to Pakistan resolution was adopted under the leadership of Ghazi-e- Millat Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan by representatives of Kashmiri people from the entire state and decided to attach their destiny with Pakistan”, he asserted.

He expressed these views while addressing an online conference organized by the Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR) titled “Kashmir: A Saga of Suffering”.

The event was also addressed by Syed Nasir Qadri, an expert on international law, Ms. Noorin Farooq Ibrahim, a member of the Parliamentary Special Committee on Kashmir, and Ms. Saba Aslam, Executive Director, Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution also addressed the conference.

Describing accession to Pakistan resolution adopted by elected representatives of Kashmir historically significant since this resolution constituted the will of the people of Kashmir; he said and maintained that the entire population of Kashmir through this resolution decided to join Pakistan even before the partition of the subcontinent.

“It is a historic document that embodies the collective political thinking, sentiments, and aspirations of the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir,” he asserted.

He said the people of Jammu and Kashmir through this resolution had set their political and ideological direction by expressing their will in unambiguous and unequivocal terms,” he argued.

He added that  the people of Jammu and Kashmir had decided to join Pakistan not only because of their natural, historical, geographical, trade and economic ties with the areas that were about to become part of Pakistan, but also because of their shared common vision and dreams for the future.

Highlight the pain and sufferings of the Kashmiri people, President Sardar Masood Khan said that the dark night of suffering on Kashmiris which started in October 1947 after the Indian Army entered Jammu and Kashmir and occupied a large part of the state, has not ended till today.

The AJK President said it was India that had taken the Kashmir issue to the United Nations and through the Security Council had declared a ceasefire in Kashmir in 1949. Delhi at that time promised that the Kashmiris would be given an opportunity to decide their political future through an UN-sponsored referendum but after 73 years, instead of fulfilling the promise, it had made with the international community and the people of Kashmir is engaged in repression tyranny.

India’s occupation army, he went on to say is killing Kashmiris, made the women tremendously suffered, arresting innocent and peaceful civilians and torturing them in the jails simply because they were peacefully demanding their freedom, liberty, and right to self-determination.

He said that despite the worst repression, genocide, war crimes and the crimes against humanity, the Kashmiris’ freedom movement was continuing and now India has adopted a new tactic to settle its Hindu citizen in Kashmir to turn the majority of Kashmiris into a minority.