Pakistan rejects India's remarks regarding visit of Delhi-based diplomats to IOK

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday rejects the Indian ministry of external affairs remarks regarding the recent visit of a group of Delhi-based diplomats to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, ARY News reported.

In a statement, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that such guided tours to the occupied territory and meetings with hand-picked people are designed to create a smoke-screen to divert attention from the egregious human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and India’s illegal measures to change the demographic structure of the occupied valley.

He maintained that the statement by UN special rapporteur on minority issues and special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief on the concluding day of this visit has rightly highlighted the Indian attempts to “alter the demographics of the region and undermine the minorities’ ability to exercise effectively their human rights”.

Read More: Pakistan urges India to allow UN observers, int’l media to visit occupied Kashmir

The spokesperson said that no sham electoral exercise in occupied Kashmir can substitute the UN Security Council mandated plebiscite under the UN auspices.

He said that India cannot even feign ‘normalcy’ with continuing military siege and restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of the Kashmiri people. The people’s rights to assembly, free movement, freedom of expression and even to safety of life and property are routinely violated in the IIOJK with impunity.

Hafeez Chaudhri said the so-called ‘development’ narrative is also an attempt to mislead the international community. It is meant to obfuscate the machinations to further disempower and disenfranchise the Kashmiri people who are being reduced to a minority in their own land through the ongoing demographic restructuring in violation of relevant UNSC resolutions and the international law, including the 4th Geneva convention.

Pakistan reiterates its call to the international community to urge India to allow the Kashmiris to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, he added.