Monday, 27 June 2011

General Election 2011, Azad Kashmir | Results



Total seats 49
Polling for 37 seats
Total candidates 390
Total Political parties 22
Total Voters 2.9
Total Polling stations 4,349
=====================================================
PPPPMLNMCJKPPIND
2084 2
LA 1 Mirpur
Afsar Shahid | PPP | 10152 | Winner
Masood Khalid | Independent | 7945
LA 2 Mirpur 2
Chaudhry Abdul Majeed | PPP | 17,400 | Winner
Sarfraz Khan | PMLN | 8154
LA 39 Valley 4
Syed Azhar Gillani | PPP | 1397 | Winner
Zafar Ali | PMLN | 2nd Position
LA 7
Tariq Farooq | PMLN | 31690 | Winner
Anwar ul Haq | PPP | 25470
LA 34 Jammu 5
Muhammad Akhbar | PPP |15327 | Winner
Haji Javaid Akhtar | PMLN | 14802
LA 18 Phunch 2
Ghulam Sadiq | PPP | 14,777 | Winner
Sardar Khan Bahadar | PMLN | 12024
LA 3
Barrister Sultan Mehmood | PPP | 17390
Chaudhry Ashraf | MC | 16192
LA 19 Rawalakot 3
Sardar Yaqoob Khan | PPP | 27,442
Sardar Khalid Ibrahim | JKPP | 17,120
LA 8 Kotli 1
Malik Nawaz | MC | 23,684 | Winner
Muhammad Yusuf | PPP | 18073
LA 5 Bhimber
Chaudhry Pervez Ashraf | PPP | 21729 | Winner 
Shafiq Jaral | MC | 16800
LA 14 Bagh 2
Sardar Qamar Zaman | PPP | 23084
Col. (R) Naseem | Independent | 11328
LA 32 Sialkot
Chaudhry Ishaq | PMLN | 24407 | Winner
Shaukhat Wazeer Ali | PPP | 18107
LA 40
Abdul Salam Butt | PPP | 1800 |Winner
Bashir Khan | PMLN | 1274
LA 13 Bagh 1
Sardar Atiq Ahmed Khan | MC | 10170 | Winner
Maj. (R) Latif Khaleeq | PMLN | 8618
LA 12 Kotli 5
Matloob Inqalabi | PPP | 11166 | Winner
Raja Nisar | PMLN | 6995
LA 23
Abdul Waheed | PPP | 19,732 | Winner
Shah Ghulam Qadir | PMLN | 13,028
LA 29 Leepa
Chaudhry Rasheed | PPP | 25,218 | Winner
Dewan Ali Jugtai | MC | 15,966
LA 28
Raja Farooq Haider | PMLN | 23948 | Winner
Azfar Zafar | PPP | 21541
LA 26
Raja Farooq Haider | PMLN |12117
Khawaja Farooq | PPP | 11335
LA 20 Dadot
Sardar Sayab Khalid | MC |
Sardar Mehmood Khan | JKPP |
LA 6
Ali Khan Soni | Independent | | Winner
LA 10 Kotli 3
Raja Naseer | PMLN | | Winner
LA 11 Kotli 4
Chaudhry Yaseen | PPP | 3611 | Winner
Raja Iqbal PMLN | PMLN | 779
LA 15 Bagh 3
Mir Akhbar | MC | 13988 | Winner
Zia Qamar | PPP | 12586
LA 21 SADHNOTI
Sardar M.Hussain | PPP | 10439 | Winner
Dr. Najeeb | PMLN | 9926
LA 22 SADHNOTI
Akhtar Rabbani | PPP 1340 | Winner
Tariq Farooq | PMLN | 963
LA 24
Sardar Javaid Yaqoob | PPP | | Winner
LA 25 MZD 2 Lachrat
Syed Bazil Naqvi | PPP | | Winner
LA 27
Lateef Akhbar | PPP | | Winner
Raja Abdul Qayyum | PMLN |
LA 31 Jammu 2
Chaudhry Ismail | PMLN | | Winner
Maqbool Ahmad | PPP |
LA 33 Jammu 4
Muhammad Hussain Sargala | Independent | 3284 | Winner
Mian Rasheed Ahmed | PMLN | 2986
LA 35 Jammu 6
Raja Sidiq | PMLN | 4839 | Winner
Ameen Jugtai | PPP | 1226
LA 38 Jehlem, Chakwal, Multan
Syed Shaukat Ali | PMLN | 335 | Winner
Dr. Sabir Ghani Butt | Independent | 248
LA 4
Ch. Arshid Hussain | PPP | 18528 | Winner
Mrs. Avina Rukhsar| Independent | 17404
LA 9 (KOTLI-2)
Javid Iqbal | Budhanvi | PPP | 29249 | Winner
Sardar M, Farooq Khan | PML(N) | 19791
LA-16 (BAGH-4)
Pending
LA-17 (SUNDHNOTI & POONCH-1)
Pending
A-30 (JAMMU & OTHERS-1)
Pending
LA-31 (JAMMU & OTHERS-2)
Pending
LA-36 (KASHMIR VALLEY-1)
Pending
LA-37 (KASHMIR VALLEY-2)
Pending
LA-41 (KASHMIR VALLEY-6)
Pending
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Will you ever wish the same for your own son?

Will you ever wish the same for your own son.

They were young buds you did not even let them run.
They fell like leaves, you harvested them just for the fun.

They were innocent; you said they were but pelting stones.
Did you think they were a danger for your bloody thrones.

Some had gone to buy candies to feed their innocence.
You plucked those who had not reached their adolescence.

You did not feel the pain of a mother weeping for her kid.
Watched the death dance in comfort that is what you all did.

You caged men inside and ordered all, not to cry.
You did not let fathers watch their dead sons fly.

You enforced brutal peace of fear by silencing the braves .
You claimed victory standing over the freshly dug graves.

You are happy, your guns may have fallen silent now.
God shall punish you soon, do not ever dare to ask how.

Our lads have achieved the status, which is all high.
Wish I could sleep for a night there where they lie.

Those who fell them, shall confess but never repent.
When their own sons to graveyards shall be sent.

Court of Allah delvers justice, maybe for us a bit late.
His judgment is tough, it has been written on their slate.

They will confess to the crime but it will not soothe their pain.
Confession without repentance, is an exercise done in vain.

Let the divine justice befall on them, let us all pray.
So that they do not drag son of someone again to slay.

You just killed our innocent boys for the fun.
Will you ever wish the same for your own son.

Koshur Mazloom © 2011
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What Hanifa left behind

She stepped out of her house during a strict curfew – not as a protester but because of the compulsions of motherhood.

Written by Freny Manecksha

After eight months of lying paralyzed in bed, on March 25 this year, 35-year-old Hanifa Wani died at her parental home in Kreeri, Baramulla. A single mother, she begged her sister-in-law during her last painful breaths to take good care of her 11-year-old daughter Humaira. She, herself, would not live to keep her promise.

A picture taken with cellular phone shows Hanifa a few days before she died on March 25, 2011.

Hanifa was among the 2000 odd people estimated to have suffered injuries at the hands of government forces last summer. Significantly, the injuries she received were above the waist and on her back. According to hospital reports she sustained five bullet injuries that affected her lung, her kidney and, most seriously, her spinal cord leaving her paraplegic.

The people of the picturesque village of Kreeri, which gets its name from a particular thorny bush, are largely dependent on the produce of orchards and small floricultural plots. Last year this seemingly tranquil village, like many others in Baramulla, was severely affected during the summer of discontent. Angry protesters spilled out on the streets and were confronted by the government forces.

Kreeri’s local population was particularly outraged by the disappearance of teenager Farukh Bukhari on July 28 after the police rounded up some youths during a march. (Farukh’s body was later found dumped outside Choura police station with a mutilated face. His body had torture marks.)

Two days after his disappearance, there were huge protests in the area. Some reports in the media speak of Hanifa being one of the protester. But the family insists that she stepped out of her house during a strict curfew – not as a protester but because of the compulsions of motherhood.

In the house of her mother Raja Begum, and in the presence of her brothers Abdullah and Sunaullah Wani, her nephew Ishfaq Wani recounts the events of July 31. “Hanifa’s daughter, Humaira, was suffering from typhoid and had high fever. Hanifa wanted to take her to the Kreeri district hospital which is just a short distance away,” recalls Ishfaq. “It was calm that morning. There were no protests going on when she stepped out around 9 am,” he says.

Half an hour later the family received an alarming phone call. The caller said that Hanifa was in the hospital, and that she was dead. The news turned out to be incorrect, but Hanifa indeed came close to death.

What happened during those crucial moments when she stepped out of the house up until the time when she was shot at near the family’s hardware shop in the chowk? Ishfaq has pieced together the sequence of events from Hanifa’s own account and from that of her daughter and local people. (A fuse box on the pole in the area still bears bullet marks).

Hanifa was first confronted by three CRPF men who gave her the permission to proceed when she explained why she needed to go to the hospital. A little while later she was stopped again, and even as she was pleading, two other troopers came charging down the small lane towards her and Humaira. Frightened, she turned back and began fleeing even as they opened fire and bullets hit her. The sound of gunshots brought some people onto the streets and in the melee two other youths also received injuries. According to bystanders, after Hanifa fell to the ground, the government forces dragged her body and attempted to chuck it into the small open drain that runs through the village chowk. Her face distinctly bore the marks of abrasion on her nose, they say.

Hanifa was taking her daughter Humaira, 11, to a local medical facility when they were shot at by troopers. (Picture: Izhar Ali)

By that time the crowds had swelled. Government forces retreated, allowing her to be taken to the hospital. Others brought her distraught daughter, who had also received a small injury, back to her home.

The district hospital provided an ambulance for her to be taken to Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura, Srinagar but the ordeal was not over yet. The ambulance was stopped near Pattan according to her brothers who had accompanied her. They were severely beaten by government forces before the ambulance was allowed to go. At SKIMS, Hanifa was rushed to the emergency ward and then shifted to neurosurgery department. The bullet that had lodged near the seventh dorsal vertebrae meant that she was paralysed for life. And since not much else could be done, the family brought her back to home after eight days.

“She regained consciousness two days after she came home. We saw her trying to speak and desperately trying to move her limbs,” recalls Ishfaq. “She kept asking what had happened to her. The days that followed were no better. She refused solid foods and survived only on liquids or intravenous fluids.”

Prolonged conflict in Kashmir has meant the crumbling away of whatever little infrastructure that existed. Expertise in medical facilities like Physiotherapy is rare especially in rural areas. There is no question of insurance cover for the kind of injury that Hanifa suffered. Many of her open wounds did not heal and she had to be taken at least twice a week to SKIMS for treatment in the ambulance provided by the district hospital. “We also had to pay for the diesel,” adds Ishfaq.

The family’s income had also suffered a serious blow because the injuries sustained by the brothers during the assault meant they were in no condition to work properly for several weeks.

The promise of assistance of Rs 50,000 for treatment of all injured by the state government did not materialize. Hanifa’s brother Abdullah Wani says he heard that Rs 3,000 would be sanctioned immediately but even that sum has not been disbursed. Meanwhile the family incurred large expenses in documenting and videographing the necessary evidence.

“The only assistance we received was from the naib tehsildar who sanctioned Rs 5,000 from his own personal funds,” says Wani.

No member of the civic administration or the state government made a visit to their home. “Even the local MLA made a visit only after critical comments were made in the media about his absence. And after Hanifa’s death he did not come to condole even though he lives barely a kilometer away,” says Ishfaq.

Hanifa eventually died after agonizing seven months of suffering. Although her ordeal and death affected the entire family, it had its most severe effect on the two vulnerable female members of her family – her aged mother and her young daughter.

Although Hanifa's ordeal and death affected the entire family, it had its most severe effect on the two vulnerable female members – her aged mother and young daughter. (Picture: Izhar Ali)

Divorced after about a year and a half of her marriage, Hanifa left her husband in Sopore and returned to her parental home where Humaira was born. As a single mother she had sworn to be the chief provider for the fatherless girl. “We will give whatever we can to Humaira but how do we replace a mother’s love?” asks Ishfaq.

Raja Begum, her mother, frequently breaks into Kashmiri during Ishfaq’s narration and keeps gesturing with her hands. Ishfaq translates: “She has an older daughter who suffers from severe diabetes and kidney disorder and was reconciled to this daughter’s critical condition. But Hanifa’s tragedy has come as a real shock,” he says. “She never imagined that she would die first.”

From the window of their home Humaira sits solemnly in one corner of the garden as white, wispy blossoms of the poplar tree whirl and cartwheel in the spring air before they fall on the ground. She has slipped out of the room during our conversation and is reluctant to speak much. Ishfaq says she is a quiet girl and hardly interacts or plays with other children. Humaira, a young child, saw her mother fell to the bullets and later had to watch her reduced to a helpless invalid.

There is an acute paucity of professional counseling services that can address this trauma and other issues that haunt the family. What the family does cling to is solace provided by a tightly-knit community. “We have been given tremendous hamdardi (a sharing of pain),” emphasizes Ishfaq.

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Sunday, 26 June 2011

More about Kashmir Dispute

More you need to know about The Kdispute:


The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved international conflict in the world today. Pakistan considers Kashmir as its core political dispute with India. So does the international community, except India.
The exchange of fire between their forces across the Line of Control, which separates Azad Kashmir from Occupied Kashmir, is a routine affair. Now that both India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons potential, the possibility of a third war between them over Kashmir, which may involve the use of nuclear weapons, cannot be ruled out. Kashmir may be a cause to a likely nuclear disaster in South Asia, which should be averted with an intervention by the international community. Such an intervention is urgently required to put an end to Indian atrocities in Occupied Kashmir and prepare the ground for the implementation of UN resolutions, which call for the holding of a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Cause of the Kashmir dispute :-
India’s forcible occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 is the main cause of the dispute. India claims to have ‘signed’ a controversial document, the Instrument of Accession, on 26 October 1947 with the Maharaja of Kashmir, in which the Maharaja obtained India’s military help against popular insurgency. The people of Kashmir and Pakistan do not accept the Indian claim. There are doubts about the very existence of the Instrument of Accession. The United Nations also does not consider Indian claim as legally valid: it recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. Except India, the entire world community recognizes Kashmir as a disputed territory. The fact is that all the principles on the basis of which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the British in 1947 justify Kashmir becoming a part of Pakistan: the State had majority Muslim population, and it not only enjoyed geographical proximity with Pakistan but also had essential economic linkages with the territories constituting Pakistan.
History of the dispute:-
The State of Jammu and Kashmir has historically remained independent, except in the anarchical conditions of the late 18th and first half of the 19th century, or when incorporated in the vast empires set up by the Mauryas (3rd century BC), the Mughals (16th to 18th century) and the British (mid-19th to mid-20th century). All these empires included not only present-day India and Pakistan but some other countries of the region as well. Until 1846, Kashmir was part of the Sikh empire. In that year, the British defeated the Sikhs and sold Kashmir to Gulab Singh of Jammu for Rs. 7.5 million under the Treaty of Amritsar. Gulab Singh, the Maharaja, signed a separate treaty with the British, which gave him the status of an independent princely ruler of Kashmir. Gulab Singh died in 1857 and was replaced by Rambir Singh (1857-1885). Two other Maharajas, Partab Singh (1885-1925) and Hari Singh (1925-1949) ruled in succession.
Gulab Singh and his successors ruled Kashmir in a tyrannical and repressive way. The people of Kashmir, nearly 80 per cent of who were Muslims, rose against Maharaja Hari Singh’s rule. He ruthlessly crushed a mass uprising in 1931. In 1932, Sheikh Abdullah formed Kashmir’s first political party—the All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference (renamed as National Conference in 1939). In 1934, the Maharaja gave way and allowed limited democracy in the form of a Legislative Assembly. However, unease with the Maharaja’s rule continued. According to the instruments of partition of India, the rulers of princely states were given the choice to freely accede to either India or Pakistan, or to remain independent. They were, however, advised to accede to the contiguous dominion, taking into consideration the geographical and ethnic issues.
In Kashmir, however, the Maharaja hesitated. The principally Muslim population, having seen the early and covert arrival of Indian troops, rebelled and things got out of the Maharaja’s hands. The people of Kashmir were demanding to join Pakistan. The Maharaja, fearing tribal warfare, eventually gave way to the Indian pressure and agreed to join India by, as India claims, ‘signing’ the controversial Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947. Kashmir was provisionally accepted into the Indian Union pending a free and impartial plebiscite. This was spelled out in a letter from the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, to the Maharaja on 27 October 1947. In the letter, accepting the accession, Mountbatten made it clear that the State would only be incorporated into the Indian Union after a reference had been made to the people of Kashmir. Having accepted the principle of a plebiscite, India has since obstructed all attempts at holding a plebiscite.
In 1947, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir. During the war, it was India, which first took the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations on 1 January 1948 The following year, on 1 January 1949, the UN helped enforce ceasefire between the two countries. The ceasefire line is called the Line of Control. It was an outcome of a mutual consent by India and Pakistan that the UN Security Council (UNSC) and UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) passed several resolutions in years following the 1947-48 war. The UNSC Resolution of 21 April 1948--one of the principal UN resolutions on Kashmir—stated that “both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite”. Subsequent UNSC Resolutions reiterated the same stand. UNCIP Resolutions of 3 August 1948 and 5 January 1949 reinforced UNSC resolutions.
Nehru’s betrayal :-
India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made a pledge to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with these resolutions. The sole criteria to settle the issue, he said, would be the “wishes of the Kashmir people”. A pledge that Prime Minister Nehru started violating soon after the UN resolutions were passed. The Article 370, which gave ‘special status’ to ‘Jammu and Kashmir’, was inserted in the Indian constitution. The ‘Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly’ was created on 5 November 1951. Prime minister Nehru also signed the Delhi Agreement with the then ‘ruler’ of the disputed State, Sheikh Abdullah, which incorporated Article 370. In 1957, the disputed State was incorporated into the Indian Union under a new Constitution. This was done in direct contravention of resolutions of the UNSC and UNCIP and the conditions of the controversial Instrument of Accession. The puppet ‘State’ government of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed rushed through the constitutional provision and the people of Kashmir were not consulted.
In 1965, India and Pakistan once again went to war over Kashmir. A cease-fire was established in September 1965. Indian Prime Minister Lal Bhadur Shastri and Pakistani president Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration on 1 January 1966. They resolved to try to end the dispute by peaceful means. Although Kashmir was not the cause of 1971 war between the two countries, a limited war did occur on the Kashmir front in December 1971. The 1971 war was followed by the signing of the Simla Accord, under which India and Pakistan are obliged to resolve the dispute through bilateral talks. Until the early 1997, India never bothered to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan even bilaterally. The direct foreign-secretaries-level talks between the two countries did resume in the start of the 1990s; but, in 1994, they collapsed. This happened because India was not ready even to accept Kashmir a dispute as such, contrary to what the Tashkent Declaration and the Simla Accord had recommended and what the UNSC and UNCIP in their resolutions had stated.
The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after coming to power in February 1997, took the initiative of resuming the foreign secretaries-level talks with India. The process resumed in March 1997 in New Delhi. At the second round of these talks in June 1997 in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to constitute a Joint Working Group on Kashmir. But soon after the talks, India backtracked from the agreement, the same way as Prime Minister Nehru had done back in the 1950s by violating his own pledge regarding the implementation of UN resolutions seeking Kashmir settlement according to, as Mr. Nehru himself described, “the wishes of the Kashmiri people.” The third round of India-Pakistan foreign secretaries-level talks was held in New Delhi in September 1997, but no progress was achieved as India continued dithering on the question of forming a Joint Working Group on Kashmir. The Hindu nationalist government of prime minister Atal Behari Vajpaee is neither ready to accept any international mediation on Kashmir, nor is it prepared to seriously negotiate the issue bilaterally with Pakistan. " Popular uprising since 1989 "
Since 1989, the situation in Occupied Kashmir has undergone a qualitative change. In that year, disappointed by decades-old indifference of the world community towards their just cause and threatened by growing Indian state suppression, the Kashmiri Muslim people rose in revolt against India. A popular uprising that has gained momentum with every passing day—unlike the previous two popular uprisings by Kashmiris (1947-48, first against Dogra rule and then against Indian occupation; and 1963, against Indian rule, triggered by the disappearance of Holy relic), which were of a limited scale.
The initial Indian response to the 1989 Kashmiri uprising was the imposition of Governor’s Rule in the disputed State in 1990, which was done after dissolving the government of Farooq Abdullah, the son of Sheikh Abdullah. From July 1990 to October 1996, the occupied State remained under direct Indian presidential rule. In September 1996, India stage-managed ‘State Assembly’ elections in Occupied Kashmir, and Farooq Abdullah assumed power in October 1996. Since then, the situation in the occupied territories has further deteriorated. Not only has the Indian military presence in the disputed land increased fundamentally, the reported incidents of killing, rape, loot and plunder of its people by Indian security forces have also quadrupled.
To crush the Kashmiri freedom movement, India has employed various means of state terrorism, including a number of draconian laws, massive counter-insurgency operations, and other oppressive measures. The draconian laws, besides several others, include the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990; Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), 1990; the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (amended in 1990); and the Jammu & Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, 1990.
Most densely soldiered territory :-
The Indian troops-to-Kashmiri people ratio in the occupied Kashmir is the largest ever soldiers-to-civilians ratio in the world. There are approximately 600,000 Indian military forces—including regular army, para-military troops, border security force and police—currently deployed in the occupied Kashmir. This is in addition to thousands of “counter-militants”—the civilians hired by the Indian forces to crush the uprising.
Since the start of popular uprising, the Indian occupation forces have killed thousands of innocent Kashmir people. There are various estimates of these killings. According to government of India estimates, the number of persons killed in Occupied Kashmir between 1989 and 1996 was 15,002. Other Indian leaders have stated a much higher figure. For instance, former Home Minister Mohammad Maqbool Dar said nearly 40,000 people were killed in the Valley “over the past seven years.” Farooq Abdullah’s 1996 statement estimated 50,000 killings “since the beginning of the uprising.” The All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)--which is a representative body of over a dozen Kashmiri freedom fighters’ organizations—also cites the same number. Estimates of world news agencies and international human rights organizations are over 20,000 killed.
Indian human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir include indiscriminate killings and mass murders, torturing and extra-judicial executions, and destruction of business and residential properties, molesting and raping women. These have been extensively documented by Amnesty International, US Human Rights Watch-Asia, and Physicians for Human Rights, International Commission of Jurists (Geneva), Contact Group on Kashmir of the Organization of Islamic Countries—and, in India, by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, the Coordination Committee on Kashmir, and the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Basic Rights Protection Committee. Despite repeated requests over the years by world human rights organizations such as the Amnesty International, the Indian government has not permitted them any access to occupied territories. In 1997, it even refused the United Nations representatives permission to visit there.
Settling the Kashmir Issue
For decades, India has defied with impunity all the UN resolutions on Kashmir, which call for the holding of a “free and fair” plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Not just this. A massive Indian military campaign has been on, especially since the start of the popular Kashmiri uprising in 1989, to usurp the basic rights of the Kashmiri people. Killing, torture, rape and other inhuman practices by nearly 600,000 Indian soldiers are a norm of the day in Occupied Kashmir.
The Kashmir problem will be solved the moment international community decides to intervene in the matter—to put an end to Indian state terrorism in Occupied Kashmir and to implement UN resolutions. These resolutions recommend demilitarization of Kashmir (through withdrawal of all outside forces), followed immediately by a plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the future status of Kashmir. The intervention of the international community is all the more necessary, given the consistent Indian opposition to both bilateral and multilateral options to settle the Kashmir issue. Such an intervention is also urgently required to stop the ever-growing Indian brutalities against the innocent Muslim people of Kashmir, who have been long denied their just right to self-determination.
Averting a Nuclear Disaster:-
If the world community failed to realize the gravity of the Kashmir problem now, there is the very likelihood of Kashmir once again becoming the cause of another war between India and Pakistan. And, since both the countries have acquired overt nuclear weapons potential, and since India led by Hindu nationalists has clearly shown its aggressive intentions towards Kashmir after declaring itself a nuclear state, a third India-Pakistan war over Kashmir is a possibility, a war that may result in a South Asian nuclear catastrophe. The world community, therefore, has all the reasons for settling Kashmir, the core unresolved political dispute between Islamabad and New Delhi.
Like many other international disputes, the Kashmir issue remained a victim of world power politics during the Cold War period. When the dispute was first brought to the UN, the Security Council, with a firm backing of the United Sates, stressed the settlement of the issue through plebiscite. Initially, the Soviet Union did not dissent from it. Later, however, because of its ideological rivalry with the United States, it blocked every Resolution of the UN Security Council calling for implementation of the settlement plan.
In the post-Cold War period—when cooperation not conflict is the fast emerging norm of international politics, a factor that has helped resolve some other regional disputes—the absence of any credible international mediation on Kashmir contradicts the very spirit of the times. An India-Pakistan nuclear war over Kashmir? Or a settlement of the Kashmir issue, which may eventually pave the way for setting up a credible global nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regimes? The choice is with the world community, especially the principal players of the international system.
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