On the occasion of Youm-e-Istehsal, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly criticized India’s continued illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir because that occupation is the core conflict of South Asia and a major cause of regional tension and instability.
In his message, the PM said that India refuses to grant identity and basic rights in addition to dignity to Kashmiris also that is not just cruel rather dangerous to the whole region. He condemned India’s August 5, 2019, decision because it revoked Kashmir’s special constitutional status and said it intended to alter the region’s identity. The move was unlawful and also one-sided.
The prime minister condemned India’s crackdown upon Kashmiri leadership and he said New Delhi is trying to silence real voices that come from the region, by way of arrests plus repression. He mentioned how the spirit for the Kashmiri people still remains unbroken in spite of the continued imprisonment of leaders like Masarrat Alam Bhatt, Yasin Malik and Shabbir Ahmed Shah.
A strong message went out to everyone from the Pakistan Army too. A special statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) was issued. In the statement, the Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir with the top military leadership restated the army’s total support for Indian-occupied Kashmir’s people.
India’s hateful rhetoric, oppression, and aggressive stance have worsened tensions in the region, he stated. It added that, backed clearly within international law as well as UN resolutions, the Pakistan Armed Forces stand firmly with Kashmiris in their legitimate battle for freedom.
In a separate press talk, Kashmir Affairs Minister Amir Muqam didn’t hold back. He strongly criticized what he described as India’s ongoing plan to sideline Kashmiri Muslims in their own homeland.
He said that since August 2019, the Indian government has been quietly changing the rules — giving non-Kashmiris domicile certificates and opening up land ownership to outsiders. “These moves,” he said, “are clearly meant to change the population makeup of the region.”
Muqam didn’t just stop there. He also talked about how India has redrawn voting maps in occupied Kashmir — something that, in his view, was done to tilt the political balance.
He said that more power is now in the hands of the Lieutenant Governor, a position that doesn’t represent the will of the Kashmiri people. “It’s like they’re slowly cutting the locals out of their own system,” he said. “Decisions are being made about them, without them — and that’s not just unfair, it’s dangerous.”
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