Islamabad, Aug 30 (IANS) India is using weapons ‘used to kill animals’ against protesting Kashmiris, an editorial in a Pakistani daily said Monday, lamenting the lack of concern in the world at the ‘ongoing saga of brutal repression in occupied Kashmir’.
Citing a shutdown called by the Hurriyat Conference, the editorial in the Nawa-i-Waqt said that more 100 people were injured in clashes during which Indian security forces had ‘indiscriminately’ used weapons used to kill wild animals (‘Jaanwaron ko marne waale haathyaaron ka bedagh istemaal kiya gaya’).
The Indian security forces are using extreme severity in occupied Jammu and Kashmir which can ‘no longer be tolerated’, it said, lamenting why the United Nations and the international community had ‘closed their eyes to this state of affairs’ and ‘why the various human rights organisations were silent spectators to this barbarity’.
‘We cannot understand why even the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) has pulled over a sheet over these happenings,’ the editorial said.
The editorial contended that however much India may try to crush the struggle of the Kashmiris for freedom and whatever ‘inhuman means’ it may use for the purpose, ‘it cannot be denied that the struggle of the Kashmiris is fast acquiring added momentum’.
It said that the Indian Army chief had stated on record that it would be futile to use the armed forces to quell this sort of a struggle and a political solution should be found to it.
‘Even Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram has told parliament that a political solution should be found to the Kashmir issue,’ the editorial said, adding: ‘The only political solution possible was that a plebiscite should be held in the Kashmir Valley, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council, so that Kashmiris can freely decide which country they want to be a part of.’
‘Neither Pakistan nor India can make this decision and it should be left to the people of Kashmir themselves, who have shown no solution can be imposed on them by force or brute power and their spirit cannot be overcome.’ the editorial said.
