Disempowerment, marginalization of Kashmiris central to BJP’s settler colonial project in IIOJK: Shabbir Shah

Srinagar, August 19 (KMS): The illegally detained All Parties Hurriyat Conference Vice Chairman, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, while denouncing the Narendra Modi-led fascist government’s move to grant voting rights to the Indian citizens residing in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir has termed it yet another attempt for political disempowerment and marginalization of the Muslim majority of the territory.

Shabbir Ahmad Shah in a message sent from New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail and released in Srinagar while reacting to recent development said, disempowerment, dispossession, and marginalization of the indigenous population has been central to the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s settler colonial project in IIOJK. He termed the move as part of the apartheid regime’s sinister plan to reduce the Kashmiris’ centrality in the electoral politics. He said, conquering Kashmir, its people and resources by all means has since long been a dream project of India’s Hindutva warriors.

The APHC leader maintained that from abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A to changing Kashmir’s age-old domicile law, from redrawing of the region’s electoral maps to tilting balance of power in favour of a particular party and now granting voting rights to non-state subjects are some of the dangerous moves, the Modi regime has made to change the region’s demography and wipe off Kashmiris’ political, religious and cultural identity. He said that all these actions were not only a brazen violation of the UN resolutions but also a violation of the Indian constitution.

Shabbir Shah urged the people of IIOJK to foil this new conspiracy. He said that marginalization and elimination of indigenous people was the ultimate goal of the BJP. The latest move, he said, speaks volumes about the communal party’s anti-Kashmir policies and its ambitious plan to install a Hindu chief minister in IIOJK.

The APHC leader said, the Kashmiris have time and again foiled the Indian conspiracies and they will never allow any such thing to happen in the occupied territory that might reduce them to second-class citizens. He also asked the Kashmiri people to forge greater unity among their ranks to thwart the conspiracies the BJP has been hatching against them every now and then.

Shabbir Shah also urged the world community to hold the Indian government accountable for its crimes in IIOJK and stop it from changing the demography of the territory.

Meanwhile, APHC leaders, Khadim Hussain and Syed Sibte Shabbir Qummi, in a joint statement issued in Srinagar reacted strongly against the Modi regime’s latest colonial move of giving the Indian citizens the right to vote in IIOJK and appealed to the UN to take cognizance of the matter. They said the Modi government is using every tactic to push the Kashmiris to the wall. They said the only purpose of such colonial moves is to bring BJP to power in IIOJK and install a Hindu Chief Minister in the territory. They said that the purpose of the redrawing the Assembly constituencies in occupied Kashmir was also to end the centrality of the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley.

The APHC leaders said India’s latest move must serve as an eye-opener for the United Nations and the international community and they must hold India accountable for illegal actions and serious crimes against humanity in the occupied territory. They said the Kashmiris are bravely resisting the Indian colonialism and one day New Delhi will definitely bow before their resolve for freedom.

APHC-AJK leader, Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, in a statement issued in Islamabad, today, said Indian latest announcement of permitting even temporary residents in IIOJK, including outside workforce and Indian forces’ personnel, to register as ‘voters’ is a clear manifestation of the treacherous Indian design to install a puppet government with complete aim to change the demographic composition of the territory and to strengthen the illegal occupation over Jammu and Kashmir.