Senate renews resolve to back Kashmiris

The Upper House of the Parliament Wednesday adopted a resolution reiterating support to the Kashmiris struggling for their right to self-determination and undoing laws by the Indian government to curb their rights so that it could continue its illegal occupation of the Valley.

Senator Dr Zarqa Taimur and Mushahid Hussain presented the resolution to the Senate calling upon the Indian state to provide the people of Kashmir with their right to self-determination in accordance with the resolution of the United Nations.

The draft demanded Delhi restore the status of Kashmir it changed on August 5, 2019. The Indian authorities should release all the political prisoners and shun attempts to make the majority a minority in the Valley, the resolution said. The senators also paid tribute to the people of Kashmir standing firm against atrocities in their just struggle for years. 

سینیٹ نے مقبوضہ کشمیر پر مزمتی قرارداد پاس کر دی، سینیٹ مقنوضہ کشمیر کے مظالم اور انڈیا کی طرف سے کل جماعتی کانفرنس بلانے کی مذمت کرتا ہے. سینیٹ کشمیر کی عوام کو خراج تحسین پیش کرتا ہے. سینیٹ سیکرٹریٹ قرارداد کو دنیا بھر کے سفارتخانوں میں بھیج دیں،چیئرمین سینیٹ کی ہدایت pic.twitter.com/LdAQQaQJRy

— Senator Dr. Zarqa Taimur (@drzarqa) June 23, 2021

The move comes days after Pakistan expressed serious concern over reports of Indian government’s plans to make new administrative and demographic changes in the occupied Kashmir.

FO spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said no new instrument of occupation will have any legal effects, in reaction to a meeting between occupied Kashmir's Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha and Indian Home Minister Amit Shah and officials in Delhi the same day.

On August 5, 2019, India had revoked the special status of occupied Kashmir and stripped Kashmiris of the semi-autonomy they had for seven decades through a rushed presidential order.

By repealing Article 370 of the Indian constitution, people from the rest of India were given the right to acquire property in the occupied Valley and settle there permanently. 

Kashmiris as well as critics of India’s Hindu nationalist-led government had seen the move as an attempt to dilute the demographics of Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindu settlers.