ISLAMABAD: Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha on Thursday reaffirmed “steadfast support” for the people of Kashmir while speaking to Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on phone.

Last week, India published a new list of redrawn political constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, giving greater representation to the Muslim-majority region’s Hindu areas while paving the way for fresh elections.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government broke up Jammu and Kashmir into two federal territories in August 2019 as part of a move to tighten its grip over the region, which is at the heart of more than 70 years of hostility between India and Pakistan.

New Delhi’s August 2019 move angered Pakistan, souring relations between the two nuclear-armed nations who have fought several wars since their independence in 1947.

“The OIC Secretary-General reaffirmed steadfast support to the just struggle of the Kashmiris for their inalienable right to self-determination,” read a press statement from Pakistan’s foreign ministry.

In his conversation with the OIC official, Bhutto-Zardari apprised him of the latest situation in Kashmir, saying the decision to redraw constituencies was “another outrageous attempt by India at political gerrymandering.”

The foreign minister said the delimitation commission’s report had proved that India was trying to disempower and disenfranchise the people of Kashmir.

Lashing out at the Indian government, Bhutto-Zardari said the report was in contravention to the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, international law and the 4th Geneva Convention that said that occupying forces could not demographically alter disputed territories.

The foreign minister commended the OIC stance on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

He reminded the secretary general that various OIC resolutions and declarations, including those adopted during the 48th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in Islamabad, had rejected India’s August 2019 move.