Pakistan has told a United Nations panel that India will fail in preventing the “ultimate triumph” of the Kashmiri people’s struggle for the exercise of their UN-pledged right of self-determination, despite New Delhi’s defiance of international law.
“The Occupied Jammu & Kashmir never was and never will be the so-called ‘integral part’ of India,” Pakistani delegate Sarfaraz Ahmed Gohar told the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, on Thursday.
“Let us be clear that unilateral declarations cannot change historical, political and legal realities,” Gohar, a first secretary in the Pakistan Mission to the UN, said while speaking in his right of reply to Indian delegate Bhavika Mangalanandan remarks claiming that Jammu and Kashmir was an “integral and inalienable part of India”, and went on to comment on Pakistan’s internal matters.
Ms. Mangalanandan made those remarks while reacting to a speech by Ambassador Usman Jadoon, acting permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, in which he highlighted the plight of millions of people around the globe, notably the people of Kashmir and Palestine, who still await the fulfillment of their promised right of self-determination.
In his response, the Pakistani delegate accused India of trying to deflect the focus of the discussion from the right to self-determination of the people of occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
“For over seven decades, occupied Kashmiris have been denied this right in utter defiance of international law, especially Article 25 of the UN Charter,” Gohar said, pointing out that the UN Security Council had committed to the people of Jammu & Kashmir this inalienable right in several resolutions.
Like all colonial powers, he said, India was portraying the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for liberation and self-determination as “terrorism”, but New Delhi will fail in preventing the ultimate triumph of the Kashmiris quest for freedom.
About the recent elections in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Gohar said, “These fake elections are not substitute for the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.”
While India advertised itself as the world’s ‘largest democracy’, the Pakistani delegate said, “The fact is that India is ruled today by a coterie of Hindu fundamentalist parties which are systematically suppressing its 200 million Muslims, its millions of Christians, and other minorities.”
“Rather than misleading the international community, India should allow the Kashmiris to exercise their right to self-determination in accordance with the Security Council resolutions,” he added.