World is now realising agonies of living under siege: AJK president

People of IOJ&K have constantly remained confined to their homes due to lockdown, says Sardar Masood Khan

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that after the outbreak of novel coronavirus, the international community now has a better realisation of agonies related to the shutdown, clampdown, and lockdown, and it is for the first time that it has experienced the fear and feelings while in confinement.

In an article published in Hilal on Saturday, he said that the people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) have constantly remained confined to their homes due to the worst lockdown imposed by the fascist Modi regime since August last year, during which thousands of people have lost their lives and livelihood.

“After the spread of COVID-19, whether on ships or facilities on land, people all over the world have experienced feelings of claustrophobia, paranoia and even asphyxiation,” the AJK president stated.

People in the occupied valley, Khan said, had been familiar with these stifling and repeated shutdowns, clampdowns and lockdowns for the past 72 years.



The president added that regretfully, the international community had never paid attention to their plight nor has it ever attempted to rid them of these agonies.

“This is an apt metaphor for Kashmiris for whom the occupied territory for the most of their existence has been one mega torture cell haunted by the ghosts of the torture and tortured whose dark shadows cannot be exorcised,” he underscored.

India, he wrote, does not allow independent representatives and delegates to visit IOJK because it has so much to hide. "The first thing it wants to hide is that the majority of the 114 million people are not with India, and the second reality they want to conceal is the most gruesome crimes against humanity that have been committed by the occupation forces against unarmed, non-combatant civilians."

Khan said the documentation of these crimes could never be easily obtained because human rights violations in the occupied territory have always been perpetrated under the thickest pall of the state secrecy, and even then the evidence that became available has been enormous and damning. "Despite that, what is coming to light about happenings in the territory, is enough to open eyes of the world," he added.



Sardar Masood Khan said that the Indian occupation forces in their imperialistic style were rendering people blind through prohibited pellet guns. "The innocent and peaceful youth are holding demonstrations in the streets and roads of occupied Kashmir."

He said that enforced disappearances of the youth and the rape of Kashmiri women as a weapon of war have become the order of the day in order perpetuate illegal hold on the state.

The president said that the Indian army was indulging in serious crimes under the garb of black laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act. "It is time that the international community pays attention to the situation of Occupied Kashmir and rid the Kashmiri people of the history's worst repression," He added.

He rejected the notion that the Narendra Modi regime had amended the domicile law in Occupied Kashmir to divert attention from its failed economic policies and the sinking economy of the country.

"The fact remains that the pre-1925 Hindutva agenda was behind all these actions. The RSS was launched on the pattern of Hitler's fascist doctrine, to establish Hindu supremacy in the region," he said adding that similarity in the approach and actions of Hitler's Nazi party and the RSS was no coincidence.