Farooq Siddiqui, chairman of one of the factions of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, Saturday condemned the statement of Pakistan lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir that Kashmir was heading towards normalcy.
Farooq Siddiqui, chairman of one of the factions of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, Saturday condemned the statement of Pakistan lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir that Kashmir was heading towards normalcy.
A statement of JKLF issued here today said that Jahangir tried to put across clandestine support for elections within Indian constitution.
“As special rapporteur of UN she should know that Kashmir is occupied by eight lakh India troops,” Siddiqui said. “Holding elections under such circumstances is an exercise in futility.”
“Being a rapporteur she should have recognised that democracy does not function when people are denied their right to freedom and their unalienable right of self-determination as stipulated in the UN Charter, he said.
“Her remark of talking about election and democratic principle in an occupied and disputed territory is a manifest divergent to her own designation of being a rapporteur for the UN,” Siddiqui said. “She has wilfully closed her eyes and mind to see and realise the reminiscence of the 20th century colonial rule.”
Siddiqui said that Jahangir, in order to be in the good books of India who has supported her as a liberal entity in Pakistan for their own interests, has overlooked how New Delhi uses inhuman laws and methods to stifle the voice of freedom.
“It is shocking that she ignores thousands of recorded disappearances and extra judicial killings in Kashmir while being a Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,” the JKLF leader said. “Her statement that her mandate is not to find the human rights violation is absurd and echoes her dishonesty towards her position.”
Reacting to her statement that her mandate as UN’s Special Rapporteur was to assess the freedom of religion and belief in the state, the JKLF leader said that Kashmir has been world’s most tolerant society where minorities have always been safeguarded. “We have a history of coexistence and respect for minorities.”
He said that instead of paying a visit to Kashmir to promote religious harmony Jahangir should visit the Muslims areas of Gujarat and Dalit areas in rural India where practice of social discrimination like ‘untouchability’ are parallel to apartheid and a blot on humanity. Khalid Jehangir, The Cheers News
Khalid Jehangir, 
