Srinagar: Kashmir High Court Bar Association on Sunday termed Prime Minister Narender Modi’s statement that development alone was the solution to the Kashmir problem as “illogical”.
The lawyers body said that the right to development was an inalienable human right and is promised by almost all the International Covenants including the Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by the UN General Assembly on 4th December, 1986. “But when people are denied the right of self-determination and there is harassment, intimidation, blinding, killing of innocents and deliberate disregard for the civil and political rights of the people and thousands are detained without trial in jails, both inside and outside the State, only for their political belief, the slogan of development is merely humbug and is going to achieve nothing,” the Bar said in a statement issued here. “The people of Kashmir having been deprived of their right of self-determination, of which economic development is a concomitant and there is a perpetual state of political strife and it being a prerequisite for any society to be free from political strife or a civil war to be able to benefit from the best chances of development, just like international peace and tranquility is essential for the development of the people on a global stage,” the lawyers’ body said. It added that unless the core issue of Kashmir was settled according to the wishes of the people, no amount of development in any one of the three regions of the State is going to solve the Kashmir problem. “It is therefore, in the interests of people of India, Pakistan as well as people of Kashmir, that government of India takes concrete steps to settle the core issue of Kashmir in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions and the promises and pledges made by its leaders to the people of Kashmir so that durable peace and tranquility is established in the region.”
The lawyers’ body said it should be also remembered that economic development is no substitute to the right of self-determination and development, without giving the people an opportunity to decide about their political status in accordance with their wishes and is no solution to the Kashmir problem and had it been the one, then the Kashmir issue would not have been existing by now. The Bar Association laso paid rich tributes to Moulana Mohammad Farooq and Abdul Gani Lone and those killed at Hawal on 21 May 1990. While appreciating the resilience of the people of Kashmir in the ongoing “freedom struggle”, the members once again pledged to play their role effectively and sincerely in taking the ongoing freedom struggle and the mission of martyrs to its logical conclusion. As a mark of respect for the martyrs and to show solidarity with the cause, the members of the Bar Association shall abstain from court work on Monday, it added.
