Malaysia's Mahathir voices concern over plight of Kashmiris in IIOJK

Former Malaysian PM says condition of Kashmiris has worsened since India stripped IIOJK of its autonomous status

ISLAMABAD:

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former prime minister of Malaysia and renowned global statesman, said on Sunday that the plight of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) had worsened since the abrogation of the occupied valley’s autonomous status in August 2019.

In a video statement on the occasion of Kashmir Solidarity Day, he said that, while India continued to insist that the revocation was its right, its follow-up actions and the impact of the decision were definitely wrong and against "all basic principles of relations between nations".

While the rest of the world imposed lockdowns to contain the spread of Covid-19, India imposed a lockdown on IIOJK to contain protests and opposition to its emergency law and revocation of the autonomous status of the occupied territory, he added.

“If lockdowns in other parts of the world were intended to save human lives and further sufferings, the lockdown on Jammu and Kashmir resulted in the exact opposite and worst,” he added.

The world came to know of horrific stories of Indian occupation forces carrying out mass extrajudicial killings, torture, and these stories continue to emerge despite repeated protests and concerns expressed by international bodies, he said.

Also read: Malaysia, India locked in spat over Kashmir

On August 5, 2019, the Modi-led Hindu nationalist government in India stripped the disputed region of its semi-autonomous status guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian constitution, as part of a plan to change the region's demographics.

The move finally gave all the imprimaturs the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) needed to not only give the decades-old brutal genocide legal permissibility but also extinguish whatever faintest possibility was left of holding negotiations with the separatists.

India was angered after then-Malaysian prime minister Mahathir said New Delhi had "invaded and occupied" IIOJK during his address in New York City at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2019.