ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday called for international intervention following India’s move to grant 25,000 domicile certificates to outsiders in Kashmir.
“The certificates issued to non-Kashmiris including, among others, the Indian government officials under Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) 2020 are illegal, void and in complete violation of the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSC) and international law,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a statement.
It added that the move to change the demographic structure would “turn Kashmiris into a minority in their own land” as the Indian government intends to “undermine the exercise by the Kashmiri people of their right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations.”
The Foreign Office said the United Nations and the international community “must intervene” to stop New Delhi from changing the demographic structure of Kashmir by “settling people from India in a territory that it has illegally occupied and the status of which remains disputed.”
In April, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced a new set of laws giving domicile rights to non-Kashmiri Indians in the country’s only Muslim-majority region.
Reports indicate that more than 33,000 residence applications have been received, mostly in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region, and 25,000 of those have been accepted since mid-May.
Discontent in Indian-administered Kashmir intensified last year, when New Delhi annulled Article 370 of the country’s constitution, which had guaranteed its special autonomous status and granted locals exclusive land and job rights.
The central government also divided the state into two union territories — Union Territory of Ladakh and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. They are now directly governed by a New Delhi representative and their local assemblies have little political and administrative authority.
