Srinagar: Kashmir High Court Bar Association on Thursday appreciated the presentation of a report on by Labour MP Chris Leslie, Chairman, All Party Parliamentary Kashmir Group comprising of 70 Parliamentarians of House of Commons and House of Lords, before British Parliament, condemning the Indian government for use of excessive force against Kashmiris and refusing to allow independent observers from Britain to enter J&K to monitor the true scale of the Human Rights tragedy over here.
In a statement issued here, the lawyers body said that it was appreciating on part of the group to have made recommendations for alleviating the sufferings of Kashmiris and it among includes repealing of J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act, J&K Public Safety Act and all other Draconian Laws and also conducting of comprehensive public investigations into the identities of bodies lying in mass and unmarked graves all over Kashmir and imposing of ban on the use of pellet guns and opening of prisons for International Inspections and for resolving the Kashmir dispute, to hold a dialogue with Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.
Meanwhile, in an Executive Committee meeting held here, the members ridiculed the assertion of Paulomi Tripathi, the First Secretary in India’s Mission to the UN and described the same as illogical, irrational, unreal and unfounded.
In response to the Pakistan’s Envoy Maleeha Lodhi’s remarks that the struggle of the Kashmiri people of their right of self-determination has been suppressed by India, Tripathi said that the right of self-determination cannot be abused to undermine a Nation’s Territorial Integrity.
“It was stated that since Kashmir is on UN Agenda from 1947 and for resolving the Kashmir dispute, the Security Council has passed 28 resolutions, which are awaiting implementation for the last more than 70 years, therefore, as a signatory to those resolutions, prominent among them being the Resolution dated 05.01.1949, India is legally and morally bound to hold plebiscite in Kashmir, under the UN auspices and allow the people to exercise their right of self-determination in a free, fair and impartial manner.”
The lawyers body added: “The exercise of such a right by the people of Kashmir, can therefore be in no way termed or accepted to be an abuse to undermine, in any manner, India’s Territorial Integrity, as Kashmir cannot be claimed by India to be its integral part, unless the people of Kashmir are given an opportunity to exercise their right of self-determination, guaranteed to them by the Security Council Resolutions and the promises and pledges made by the Indian Govt. and its leaders both inside and outside the Indian Parliament and at the world fora.”
The members also stated that the principle of self-determination is also envisaged-in and supported by a host of International Laws including International Covenant on Political Rights and can be employed in every conceivable situation where the state comes into conflict with the people, who ask for such a right and keeps the conflict resolution at bay and also subjects the people to innumerable sufferings and miseries to perpetuate its forcible occupation.
