ISLAMABAD: Jammu and Kashmir will never be an integral part of India, Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations said on Tuesday, adding the disputed territory’s ‘final disposition’ should be decided by the Kashmiri people through a plebiscite.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir has been divided between Pakistan and India since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries govern parts of the territory but claim it in full, having fought two of their three wars over the disputed region.
Addressing the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee, a Pakistani diplomat, Ansar Shah, criticized India for maintaining heavy security presence in the region to suppress people’s voice.
“First, Jammu and Kashmir is not, never has been, and will never be an integral part of India,” he said. “It is a disputed territory, whose final disposition is to be decided by the people of Jammu and Kashmir through a UN-supervised plebiscite, as demanded by numerous resolutions of the Security Council.”
Shah said India had killed over 100,000 Kashmiris since 1989, many of them in “fake encounters.”
“All pro-freedom Hurriyat Leaders have remained incarcerated for years and many have died in custody under suspicious circumstances,” he said. “India seeks to portray the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for liberation and self-determination as terrorism.”
The Pakistani diplomat also lambasted India’s threats of taking over Azad Kashmir, reiterating Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s stance of responding “decisively” to any Indian aggression.
